The Internet has transformed from a mere publishing medium to an important communication and business facility. Among the many vendors that provide web-based solutions, multi-tiered system architecture became extremely popular. Developing with multiple tiers increases the scalability, performance, and reliability of distributed applications. Server components can be distributed across any number of servers to boost system availability. Rapid modification to these components is possible when business rules or economic conditions dictate. And the location-independence of these components allows system administrators to easily reconfigure system load. The challenge to IT professionals today is to efficiently develop and deploy applications for use on both corporate intranets and over the Internet. Among multi-tiered system architecture, three-tiered client/server architecture provides an environment which supports all of the benefits of both the one-tiered approach and the two-tiered approach while supporting the goals of a flexible architecture.   Our Philosophy The three tiers refer to the three logical component parts of an application, not to the number of machines used by the application. The three-tiered application model splits an application into its three logical component types, Presentation Tier, Business Logic Tier, and Enterprise Information System (EIS) Tier... Challenges There are many challenges in the development world while “write once, run anywhere” is still the leading challenge. Development teams are still divided into two camps: J2EE vs. .NET. Both platforms come with their advantages and disadvantages… J2EE The Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition is a standard set of Java technologies that streamline the development, deployment, and management of enterprise applications and it is complete in a sense that it is possible to develop a large class of enterprise applications using only the J2EE technologies. J2EE provides the ability to deploy component-based enterprise applications across multiple tiers in a platform natural manner... .NET Microsoft defines .NET as the Web services strategy to connect information, people, systems, and devices through software. Integrated across the Microsoft platform, .NET technology provides the ability to quickly build, deploy, manage, and use connected, security-enhanced solutions with Web services…   Trademark Acknowledgements Any company, product or service names are trademarks or service marks of their respective companies.