This document discusses different software architecture tiers - 1-tier, 2-tier, and 3-tier architectures. 1-tier architecture has all components tightly coupled together with no separation. 2-tier architecture separates components into client and server but business logic remains coupled to either presentation or data. 3-tier architecture fully separates presentation, business logic, and data layers, allowing each tier to scale independently for improved performance, reusability, and maintainability compared to 1-tier and 2-tier architectures.