Representational state transfer

Representational State Transfer (REST) is an architectural style that defines a set of constraints to be used for creating Web services. RESTful Web services allow the requesting systems to access and manipulate textual representations of Web resources using a uniform and predefined set of stateless operations. Other kinds of Web services, such as SOAP Web services, expose their own arbitrary sets of operations.

Principles

The underlying principles of REST involve the use of resources identified by their Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs). These principles are outlined as follows:

• Resource Identification: In REST, every important concept or entity is considered a resource, which can be accessed using a unique URI.
• Uniform Interface: REST dictates that resources should be manipulated using a specific set of operations, which are typically HTTP methods such as GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, and PATCH.
• Statelessness: Each request from a client to a server must contain all the information the server needs to fulfill the request. The server does not store any session information about the client.
• Cacheability: Responses must explicitly state whether they are cacheable or not, which helps improve network efficiency and client responsiveness.
• Layered System: A client cannot ordinarily tell whether it is connected directly to the end server or to an intermediary along the way.

Advantages

RESTful Web services offer several advantages over more complex services such as SOAP:

• Simplicity: Using HTTP for what it's designed for (CRUD operations: Create, Read, Update, Delete) makes REST simpler to use.
• Scalability: Stateless interactions improve scalability and independence among various components of the system.
• Performance: REST can use caching of resources to improve performance by reducing the need to interact with the server.
• Portability: By separating the UI from the data storage, REST allows for easier deployment of applications across various platforms.

Disadvantages

Despite its advantages, REST also has some limitations:

• Security: RESTful services are inherently less secure than SOAP, as they use standard HTTP without additional protocols such as WS-Security.
• Statelessness: While statelessness improves scalability, it can also increase the complexity of performing certain operations that require maintaining state.

Use Cases

REST is well-suited for basic CRUD operations on resources. It is commonly used for building public HTTP APIs, where simplicity and performance are key considerations. Examples include APIs for web applications, mobile applications, and IoT (Internet of Things) devices.

See Also

• Web service
• SOAP
• HTTP
• Uniform Resource Identifier
• Internet of Things