____ is a simple architectural style that connects a number of components that process a stream of data, each connected to the next component in the processing

Software architecture is the set of structures needed to reason about a software system and the discipline of creating such structures and systems. In other words, Software Arcitecture describes how software components — subroutines, classes, functions, etc. — are arranged, and the interactions between them.
Some types of software architecture patterns are: Layered (N-tier) architecture. Client-server architecture. Event-driven architecture.