Asp.net mvc layer division

Question

I am new to asp.net mvc. I want to divide presentation layer with logic layer. I know it is already done in asp.net mvc but I want to have presentation layer on another machine. I don't know if this what I want to do, is possible, but just wanna ask. I want something like this: User enters address 123.123.123.123/Home then that request is redirected to presentation layer. Presentation layer is then asking "Logic Server" for data(from database or smthing) and logic server returns it back to presentation layer which presents the page to the client. My overall goal is to make framework which allows us to do this easily. And my questions: 1. Is it worth doing it? 2. Is it possible with asp.net mvc ? 3. Is there anything like this?

I wanna also extend that framework to work independent from technology. And the presentation layer would be a "connector"

Answer 1

Quite strange architecture.

You can indeed use SOA. It has many advantages and it's well studied and supported.

However, I wouldn't use SOA for the presentation layer (and I don't remember to have seen that never).

You'd normally have the business logic in a layer, and expose it as Web Services (that's SOA), and all the presentation (in this case creating MVC view models, and returning the rendered views to the browser) in the same application. (See note at the bottom)

It has no sense to separate the Presentation in a SOA layer, because you cannot reuse it for anything else. I.e. you cannot use that presentation layer for a windows application, or to use it for a java web application.

However, if your business logic is exposed in a SOA layer, then you can use it with any kind of UI you want: windows forms, WPF, or even a Java Web Application.

Apart form this there is a tigh knot between routes, and controllers in MVC. You cannot easily achive what you want to do. However, you can easily make an MVC presentation layer (routes, controllers and viewws), which uses the business layer exposed as SOA from your controllers. That's much more natural.

Is it possible: of course, but non-standard and har to do.

Is it worth: No it isn't. Your canot reuse it with a different techonlogy. Which is the advantage?

Is something like this: neve seen it!

NOTE: having a single app doesn't mean having a single layer. But you don't need to separate them in different applications or SOA layers. If you use MVC correctly you'll have a very clear separation between Views (which render the result for the browser) and controllers (which prepare the View Models for rendering the Views) and the Business layer (which can be in a different app, exposed as SOA services, and consumed from this controllers). In fact, it's hardly impossible to make a bad use of MVC if you have into account that you need View Models, which are objects specifically created for the view to be rendered, instead of using directly the business entities.

For example a vie model can have a customer's data to edit it, but probably will have several lists of options for populating drop down lists. If you don't use view models, you'll soon have problems.

Answer 2

You can do this by having some kind of Service Oriented Architecture. In your MVC app you have a services layer, this could talk to a WCF service or something similar on your network. Your WCF service would then talk to another machine for data storage, do the required business logic and return simple DTO's.

1. Is it worth doing? This depends on you. Is there a good reason to do this? It shouldn't be that hard, and if you write your MVC app correctly the services layer will abstract away the fact that the service is on another machine or the same machine so you have some flexibility to change your mind later.

2. Is it possible? Yup

3. Is there anything like this? I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who are doing/have done what I have described