Pipe-and-Filter architecture refers to a style of architecture that was introduced in the early 1970s. In this section, we will introduce Pipe-and-Filter architecture, along with concepts such as filters and pipes. 

Doug McIlroy introduced Pipe-and-Filter architecture in Unix in 1972. The implementations are also known as pipelines, and they consist of a chain of processing elements, arranged so that the output of each element is the input of the next one, as illustrated in the following diagram:

As shown in the preceding diagram, Pipe-and-Filter architecture consists of several components, named filters, that can transform (or filter) data across the process. The data is then passed to other components (filters) via pipes that are connected to each component.