Understand 3-Tier Architecture in C#

Sourav Kayal

21 Comments

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Sahit Erdis4y ago
Hi, you have chosen to let layers be represented by folders, one folder BLL and another DAL. Most of the other examples of layered architecture let layers be represented by projects, i.e. one project for BLL and another for DAL. Could you explain why you use the folder approach? Tanks!
Mayooran Navamany10y ago
Nice explanation! :)
Fahim Ashar10y ago
thanx for useful infomation
Arindam Pandit11y ago
The title of the article should be changed to 3 Layered, 2 Tiered Architecture. Or it should be rewritten to depict a real 3 tier architecture.
Ervis Trupja11y ago
Great explanation! :)
Arindam Pandit11y ago
It is not 3 tier Architecture. To implement one with Asp.Net try .Net Remoting or WCF if SOA is on mind.
Sourav Kayal13y ago
Thanks Mahesh Sir, for your nice explanation and good link.
- Suresh Akula11y ago
  why you are copying another blog??????/
Mahesh Chand13y ago
Here is another article that explains 1-tier, 2-tier, and 3-tier: http://blog.simcrest.com/what-is-3-tier-architecture-and-why-do-you-need-it/
Mahesh Chand13y ago
@Vithal, I agree with Sam. No need to going back and forth. Please provide a relevant information online to share so we can educate ourselves. BTW here is a good link and see right side image http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multitier_architecture
Mahesh Chand13y ago
@Surabh Kayal, unfortunately, the dotnetfunda article you have referenced to is not correct. In real-world, tier actually refer to a physical layer of separation. So in case of 3-tier, you will have three computers on a network where your database will be on a database server, your business layer will be running on another server that may be doing some BI and business processing and your UI layer will sit on a Web server. What you're referring here in this article is a 3-Layered approach of a project.
Santosh Kumar13y ago
You have write same article on codeproject.
Santosh Kumar13y ago
I am agree with Sam.
Sam Hobbs13y ago
Vithal, have you written a relevant article? If not, then do you have one or more to suggest? I suggest you write an article that shares what you know.. If you do not have time to write an entire article then you can write an extension to this article.
Vithal Wadje13y ago
dear writter involve your own skill,dont paste as it is from other site,i know that example is also not a three layered architecture ,he created three classes in one folder,pure article comes from a experience,dont suggest me anything,try write only those article so can read can read it trustfully that what i have reading is true
- Sourav Kayal13y ago
  Vithal, I will request you to write one full article on same topic, Then we can understand it properly. by the way i did not copy anything from other, Try to read their thought and ideas. And then i mix it with my understanding and try to represent in my own word. I think this is the best way of learning, If you think that it's copy and paste then i am sorry, our views are different. By the way , Waiting for your article on same topic.
Sourav Kayal13y ago
dear vithal , I will suggest you to visit this link. http://www.dotnetfunda.com/articles/show/71/3-tier-architecture-in-aspnet-with-csharp
Vithal Wadje13y ago
wrong
Sourav Kayal13y ago
Dear Vitha, I wan't say that 2 tier and 3 tier are same, And in case of Tier architecture we have to call by service right? Basically for sake of simplicity we have implement like this. But surely we can transfer data through service.
Vithal Wadje13y ago
this is not a tier"s Architecture example,these are the just layers,its very confusing in your other some words that you are saying 2 tier and 3 tier are same,please correct your titlte and some of the words so other can not be get confused
Sam Hobbs13y ago
Does multiple tiers require multiple computers? That seems impractical. I suspect that many people would consider tiers and levels to be the same. It is confusing to use those terms if they are not the same.

In this article, we will learn to implement 3-tier architecture in a C# application. 3-tier architecture is a very famous and well known buzzword in the world of software development. If we analyze any traditional project then we will find that most of (at least 60-70%) them have traditional N-tier, basically 3-tier architecture. It does not matter whether it is a web or Windows application, we can implement 3-tier architecture in any type of environment.

Although it is a very well known and common architecture, it's not very clear to beginner developers or those who are very new in project development.

Why 3-Tier Architecture?

Still I can remember that, the first organization in my career was dealing with one small Point of Sales (POS) project. It was a Windows application and there was no layered architecture. We developers started to write all code in the Windows Forms Application. The problem started after a few days. How? When our manager announced that we need to develop one web version of the same product. Again we started to develop web pages from scratch and started to write all code. A total mess.

So, this is the problem and the solution is tierd architecture. If we separate our code by layers then changes in one layer will not affect another very much. Tomorrow if the business demands, we can change the UI very quickly by using existing code.

Difference between tier and layer

It is a confusing question for beginners. A few think that both are the same. But they are not the same. Tier represents multiple hardware boxes. In other words the components are physically separated into multiple machines. But in the case of layers all components are in the same system.

What are the Layers?

Theoretically it is N-tier architecture. So, we can create as many layers as possible but basically people classify code in three categories and put them in three layers. So, for this article we will consider N-tier architecture as 3-tier architecture and try to implement one sample application.

Let's explain each and every layer first.

Presentation Layer/ UI Layer

This is the top-most layer of the application where the user performs their activity. Let's take the example of any application where the user needs to fill up a form. This form is nothing but the Presentation Layer. In Windows applications Windows Forms are the Presentation Layer and in web applications the web form belongs to the Presentation Layer. Basically the user's input validation and rule processing is done in this layer.

Business Layer

This is on top of the Presentation Layer. As the name suggests, most of the business operations are performed here. For example, after collecting form data we want to validate them with our custom business rule. Basically we define classes and business entities in this layer.

Data Access Layer

On top of the Business Logic Layer is the Data Access Layer. It contains methods that help the business layer to connect with the database and perform CRUD operations. Generally all database related code and stuff belongs to the Data Access Layer. Sometimes people use a platform-independent Data Access Layer to fetch data from various database vendors.

Let's Implement

Before starting with an example, one more question needs to be clarified. How will we pass data from one layer to another layer? In other words, in which form is the data passed?

There are many solutions for this problem. For our example, we will pass data using function parameters. In this example, we will implement one small Windows application to fetch data from the database using 3-tier architecture. In this example, we will read data from a single "Person" Table.

Code for Data Access Layer

Let's start from the Data Access Layer; we will create a function to read data from the database. Have a look at the following code.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Data;
using System.Data.SqlClient;
namespace WindowsFormsApplication1.DAL
{
public class PersonDAL
{
public string ConString = "Data Source=SOURAV-PC\\SQL_INSTANCE;Initial Catalog=test;Integrated Security=True";
SqlConnection con = new SqlConnection();
DataTable dt = new DataTable();
public DataTable Read()
{
con.ConnectionString = ConString;
if (ConnectionState.Closed == con.State)
con.Open();
SqlCommand cmd = new SqlCommand("select * from Person",con);
try
{
SqlDataReader rd = cmd.ExecuteReader();
dt.Load(rd);
return dt;
}
catch
{
throw;
}
}
public DataTable Read(Int16 Id)
{
con.ConnectionString = ConString;
if (ConnectionState.Closed == con.State)
con.Open();
SqlCommand cmd = new SqlCommand("select * from Person where ID= "+ Id +"", con);
try
{
SqlDataReader rd = cmd.ExecuteReader();
dt.Load(rd);
return dt;
}
catch
{
throw;
}
}
}
}

We have created two overloadeded functions to read data. One function will not take any arguments and other functions will fetch data using ID.

Create a Business Logic Layer

We will now create a Business Logic Layer to communicate with both the Presentation Layer and Data Access Layer. Here is our code for the Business layer.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Data;
using WindowsFormsApplication1.DAL;
namespace WindowsFormsApplication1.BLL
{
public class PersonBLL
{
public DataTable GetPersons()
{
try
{
PersonDAL objdal = new PersonDAL();
return objdal.Read();
}
catch
{
throw;
}
}
public DataTable GetPersons(Int16 ID)
{
try
{
PersonDAL objdal = new PersonDAL();
return objdal.Read(ID);
}
catch
{
throw;
}
}
}
}

Create a Presentation Layer

This is the top-most layer where the user interacts with the system. We will create simple windows as in the following:

The form contains one DataGrid, one TextBox and one Button. In the load event of the form we will pull all data and it will show in the DataGrid. There is another operation, where can the user fetch a specific person by providing the person's ID. Have a look at the following code.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Data;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using WindowsFormsApplication1.BLL;
namespace WindowsFormsApplication1
{
public partial class Form1 : Form
{
public Form1()
{
InitializeComponent();
}
private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
try
{
PersonBLL p = new PersonBLL();
this.dataGridView1.DataSource = p.GetPersons(Convert.ToInt16(this.txtID.Text));
}
catch
{
MessageBox.Show("Error Occurred");
}
}
private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
try
{
PersonBLL p = new PersonBLL();
this.dataGridView1.DataSource = p.GetPersons();
}
catch
{
MessageBox.Show("Error Occurred");
}
}
}
}

So, this is the entire project structure:

Here is sample output in the form load event.

If we want to search for a specific person then we need to provide an ID.

Table Structure

Here is our table structure. It contains the three fields ID, name and surname.

Table Name: Person

Conclusion

In this article, we have seen how to implement simple 3-tier architecture in .NET. Hope you have understood the concept. In a future article, we will concentrate more on 3-tier architecture.