RESTful Web Services as an Alternative to Big Web Services Essay

RESTful Web Services as an Alternative to Big Web Services - Essay Example This paper will critically analyse the RESTful web services and the way these web services differ from Big Web Service techniques. RESTful web services The term ‘representational state transfer’ was coined by Roy Fielding in 2000 in his doctoral research paper. REST can be simply defined as software architecture designed for systems like World Wide Web. â€Å"REST is a particular style of enabling communication based on the principle that all data as well as operations on data are enabled using strictly static URLs based on the HTTP protocol† (Kashyap et al, 2008, p.207). This architectural model has been developed over the recent years as a widely accepted web service design model. REST has a specific set of architectural principles that assists a user to design customized web services focusing on the resources of a system. As Rodriquez (2008) points out, this model’s simplicity has assisted it to displace interface designs based on WSDL and SOAP over the last few years. Even though this software architecture did not gain much attention during its initial stages, today it is being quickly developed to support web based services. The REST architectural design specifically defines six constraints that have been applied to this software architecture. ... Similarly, servers do not focus on user interface so that they can be more scalable and simpler. Stateless The communication between the client and the server is further constrained since client contexts are not saved on the server between service requests. All the essential information required to serve the request will be included in requests by any client. Since the servers can be stateful, they will be more visible for monitoring and more reliable in partial network issues. Cacheable Since clients can store responses, they (responses) must be clearly defined as cacheable or not so to prevent clients from reusing improper data in an attempt to service further requests. Effectively managed caching would eliminate some sorts of interactions between client and the server and contribute to scalability and performance (Bhuvaneswari and Sujatha 2011). Layered system Generally, it is not possible for a client to indicate whether or not it is connected to the end server or an intermediary . Since intermediary servers are able to provide shared caches, and enable load balancing, they can significantly improve system scalability. In addition, such intermediary servers can enforce security policies. Code on demand A client’s functionality can be temporarily extended or customized by servers through transfer of executable code. It is the only optional component of REST software architecture. Compiled components like Java applets and client side scripts like JavaScript are some well known examples (Oracle, n.d). Uniform interface The uniform interface between clients and servers play a notable role in simplifying the architecture. The four guiding principles of uniform interface are â€Å"identification of resources, manipulation of resources through