Me: Mom really you cannot
just expect the computer to be able to understand and do everything magically.
You need to talk to it properly. N by talking I don’t mean literally.
Mother: I am not an idiot ok , just because you
did some computer engineering thing you think you know better.
M: No Ma , I was just saying that it takes
time for these PF queries and all to be taken care of cause this is no just a
bank deal , it’s about the company and its database and architectural system.
Mother: How does the structure of the company’s
building come into the picture here?
Me: Not that architecture ma JJ..i
am talking about system architecture as in how that computer that the guy at finance
has it connected to the actual data in the company.
Mother: If he is the guy who is supposed to
handle these things why doesn’t he have the data on his machine?? This is just
laziness.
Me: Arre no Ma J..
see like in your core banking system you can access the actual data of any
account from your machine no matter which branch the account is in , it’s the same.
Let me see if I can explain it to you a little.
See like when we have a little fever we simply go to a general
physician cause he has all the information or knowledge needed and also the
authority to check and give me medicine – that is in a nut shell a 1-tier
architecture.1 man - or in the system’s case ‘Machine’- for everything both the
data and the applications that are working on it.
But imagine with the number of people coming to see trusted old
Doc Banerjee he would never ever have been able to survive if there wasn’t
Shankar da.
So , Doc checks the patient cause he has all the knowledge – data - and Shanti di gives the medication, injections
n all – so application.
That’s 2-tier architecture. Application and data are separated J
Mother: Ok so how many tiers are there???
Me: Well in reality the
systems are normally multi-tiered. Lemme elaborate
Say now like Shanti di there are others too working for docs and
they have an idea of a particular medicine. Now if that medicine needs to be
changed, then all of them have to be informed !!!
Mother: That would be difficult.
Me: Exactly so docs use the prescriptions as
the medium. All the basic calculations are in the prescriptions only and the
meds are given by shops.
So , in effect in a 3-tiered architecture we have a client
machine , that only displays stuff and in the back we have a data server and an
application server which does the actual manual work. This all is connected by
a WAN.
Mother:
What is a WAN now????You keep throwing jargons at me.. L
Me: No Mom , see you don’t know WAN cause it
cannot be used widespread , after a certain limit say 1000 people in one area.
So we use the “INTERNET” for all these things- making it even simpler. So no
need for any application at all for the clients , simple web browsers are used
and just add a web server at the organizational end- much like the reception
people who guide the patients to the doctors depending upon their sicknesses. J
Mother: Ok n I know why the machines in the bank
have firewalls so that people from outsider cannot misuse the important
information , kind of like the medical files and lockers which are strictly
confidential.
Me: Kudos Ma!! J
So now we have the web server taking info from the client web
browsers and translating it to the applications server needed and the
application server then using the data server to solve the request. A lot of data
transfer is no longer happening over the wires and so it’s faster.
Nowadays they use the ERP system and a Integrated corporate
database so that all the data and applications are together and also all the
applications can talk to each other well.
Mother: Why is that needed?
Me: If is sit you next to someone who speaks hindi
, you will both stop talking permanently with your extremely bad hindi
vocabulary , right? So that way it’s better to keep applications which are compatible.
J
Mother: That’s so easy!! So tell me now then why
if the system is so efficient is the guy taking so long for the PF results? But
more importantly how come you got such less marks in BTech??
Me: Hey!! Where did I come in
here? No one ever thought of explaining it to me like this , now , did they?? JJ
