Onion structure optimizes attack robustness of interdependent networks

Do you remember how we split the Service layer into the Services.Abstractions and Services projects? The purpose of the Presentation layer is to represent the entry point to our system so that consumers can interact with the data. We can implement this layer in many ways, for example creating a REST API, gRPC, etc. The Onion architecture is also commonly known as the “Clean architecture” or “Ports and adapters”. These architectural approaches are just variations of the same theme. In this article, we are going to learn about Onion architecture and what are its advantages.

To make it straightforward to download the application code and be able to run the application locally we are using Docker. With Docker we are wrapping our ASP.NET Core application inside of a Docker container. We are also using Docker Compose to group our Web application container with a container running the PostgreSQL database image. That way, we won’t need to have PostgreSQL installed on our system.

Layers in Onion Architecture

Aliaksandr is a Senior .NET developer at SaM Solutions with 13 years of experience. Being a Microsoft certified engineer, he specializes in web development and has experience in creating desktop and mobile solutions. Aliaksandr is fond of learning new technologies, conducting meetups and teaching newbies at internal company courses. It consists of algorithms that are essential to its purpose and implement the use cases that are the heart of the application. For every service, we will write the CRUD operation using our generic repository. After Adding the DbSet properties we need to add the migration using the package manager console and run the command Add-Migration.

We have already prepared a working project for you and we’re going to be looking at each of the projects in the solution, and talking about how they fit into the Onion architecture. The flow of dependencies dictates what a certain layer in the Onion architecture what is onion architecture can do. Because it depends on the layers below it in the hierarchy, it can only call the methods that are exposed by the lower layers. The Onion architecture is a form of layered architecture and we can visualize these layers as concentric circles.

Enabling machine learning model inference for time critical applications.

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Most of the traditional architectures raise fundamental issues of tight coupling and separation of concerns. Onion Architecture was introduced by Jeffrey Palermo to provide a better way to build applications in perspective of better testability, maintainability, and dependability. Onion Architecture addresses the challenges faced with 3-tier and n-tier architectures, and to provide a solution for common problems. Onion architecture layers interact to each other by using the Interfaces. C# programmers are drawn to Onion Architecture due to the dependency flows.

Separation of concerns

However, there are still a couple of things to take care of. But how are we going to use the controller if it is not in the Web application? Great, we have seen how to implement the Presentation layer. Now, let’s look at some of the custom exceptions that we have inside the Exceptions folder. Notice that we are setting the CancellationToken argument as an optional value, and giving it the default value.

In onion architecture, we have the domain layer, repository layer, service layer, and presentation layer. Onion architecture solves the problem that we face during the enterprise applications like coupling and separations of concerns. Onion architecture also solves the problem that we confronted in three-tier architecture and N-Layer architecture. In Onion architecture, our layer communicates with each other using interfaces. Given an existing interdependent system, how can improve the robustness against random and/or malicious attacks by adjusting the structural properties? As for single networks, many researchers have devoted a great number of efforts to improve attack robustness with emphasis laid on the influence of network structures [31], [32], [33], [34].

Repository Layer

At SaM Solutions, we’ve developed a kind of platform that allows you to automate the development and deployment of systems that use Docker. Click on project reference now and select the Domain layer. Onion architecture uses the concept of the layer but is different from N-layer architecture and 3-Tier architecture. As I have already inserted one record in the database by using InserCustomer API we will see the data by executing Get ALL Customers API. Fun Fact – Microsoft themselves recommend this kind of architecture for complex solutions.

• They are NOT typically CRUD services and are usually standalone services.
• We can use lower layers of the Onion architecture to define contracts or interfaces.
• By doing this, we can ensure that our asynchronous calls that use the CancellationToken will always work.
• In the case of the API presentation layer that presents us the object data from the database using the HTTP request in the form of JSON Object.
• These are just some of the examples of what we could define in the Domain layer.
• We will add the interfaces that consist of the data access pattern for reading and writing operations with the database.

In 3-tier and n-tier architectures, none of the layers are independent; this fact raises a separation of concerns. The drawback of this traditional architecture is unnecessary coupling. Onion Architecture is based on the inversion of control principle. Onion Architecture is comprised of multiple concentric layers interfacing each other towards the core that represents the domain. The architecture does not depend on the data layer as in classic multi-tier architectures, but on the actual domain models. The onion plant has a fan of hollow, bluish-green leaves and its bulb at the base of the plant begins to swell when a certain day-length is reached.

Easy to maintain

With the CRUD logic out of the way, let’s set up EFCore in the Persistence Layer and try to generate a database. Install the following packages to the Persistence Project. Next, let’s go to the Infrastructure Folder and add a layer for Database, (EFCore).

Moreover, Yuan et al. [21] proposed and studied a generalized percolation model that introduced a fraction of reinforced nodes that can function and support their neighborhood. Zhou et al. [22] investigated network recovery based on system crash early warning in a cascading failure model. In [23], Dong et al. proposed a novel method based on adding extra inter-links on the existing one-to-one coupled networks, thus the robustness level can be improved appropriately. We can use lower layers of the Onion architecture to define contracts or interfaces. The outer layers of the architecture implement these interfaces. This means that in the Domain layer, we are not concerning ourselves with infrastructure details such as the database or external services.

Domain Model/Entities

Connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search. Software Engineering Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for professionals, academics, and students working within the systems development life cycle. Without registering the ExceptionHandlingMiddleware with the dependency container, we would get a runtime exception, and we do not want that to happen. Remember that we have two abstract exception classes BadRequestException and NotFoundException inside of the Domain layer? Great, we saw how we wired up all of the dependencies of our application.