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Design Decomposition Blog
Iridium Satellite Collision in Space
You might have seen the recent news reports about the collision between U.S. and Russian communication satellites. The U.S. satellite was one of the Iridium satellites. What wasn’t reported and you probably don’t know is that an object database management system (ODBMS) is an important part of the Iridium system. Even though ODBMSs are a [...]
February 13, 2009
(The Acronym) SOA is (Perhaps) Dead (at Some Companies); Long Live Services
I am now also posting on the Cutter Blog. My initial posting is (The Acronym) SOA is (Perhaps) Dead (at Some Companies); Long Live Services. It is a response to Anne Thomas Manes’ SOA is Dead; Long Live Services on her blog at the Burton Group.
January 9, 2009
Atomicity
The typical definition of an atomic task or process is one that cannot be decomposed further. This is vague and subject to interpretation. The Decomposition Matrix on this site uses a specific definition: A task (for business process diagrams) or a process (for data flow diagrams) is atomic if every input relates to every output [...]
December 3, 2008
Well-Formed Business Process Diagrams
My last posting referenced the criteria for a well-formed business process diagram mentioned in Business Process Driven SOA using BPMN and BPEL by Matjaz B. Juric and Kapil Pant. I am going to expand on their criteria to create a more comprehensive definition of a well-formed business process diagram. To start, here are three criteria from [...]
November 18, 2008
Recent Business Process Modeling Books
I recently received two new books on business process modeling. Both books looked interesting because they had great titles. As it turns out, one book is great and the other not so good. The not so good book is Business Process Driven SOA using BPMN and BPEL by Matjaz B. Juric and Kapil Pant. There are [...]
October 9, 2008
The Design Decomposition Blog
is written by Doug Barry.

Representational State Transfer (REST) is a style of architecture based on a set of principles that describe how networked resources are defined and addressed. These principles were first described in 2000 by Roy Fielding as part of his doctoral dissertation (new window). REST is an alternative to the W3C's set of standards that include SOAP (new window) and other WS-* specifications (some are shown in the navigation menu below).

It is important to note that REST is a style of software architecture as opposed to a set of standards. As a result, such applications or architectures are sometimes referred to as RESTful or REST-style applications or architectures. REST has proved to be a popular choice for implementing Web Services. For example, the books suggested at the bottom of many of these article pages are dynamically generated, in part, using a REST architecture. It is one of the options for Amazon Web Services (new window).

An application or architecture considered RESTful or REST-style is characterized by:

This is essentially the architecture of the Internet and helps to explain the popularity and ease-of-use for REST.

More information:  Roy Fielding's doctoral dissertation (new window)

Related content for: Representational State Transfer (REST)

More on the general topic: Messaging specifications

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There are nearly 400 pages of articles on this site with over 130 pages on Web services and service-oriented architecture.

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Click on the topics below to browse the articles on this site. You can see more detail by clicking on the arrows. This highlights the location of the current article: Representational State Transfer (REST).

Related recent articles from Google News

Why Web Services Failed at SOA (and Why REST May Fail Too!)
SYS-CON Media (press release)
First, let's review what is the concept behind services, with particular mention of the web services themselves. ...

10 Mar 2010 at 7:17am
Saffron Uses Associative Memory to Mimic Brain
CTO Edge (blog)
It is built on current standards for componentization, to openly incorporate modern tools such as REST interfaces for SOA integration, and service and ...

11 Mar 2010 at 7:51am
Emerging Industry SOA Best Practices
InfoQ.com
They also recommend capturing lessons learned and educate the rest of the enterprise before continuing with the next SOA project. Have a Long-Term Vision. ...

10 Mar 2010 at 8:03pm
Time To Tell
SourceWire (press release)
Unified Software, an innovative global web services technology company has a confession. Whilst the rest of the IT industry has shouted about every advance, ...
and more »
11 Mar 2010 at 4:31am
Google opens Google Apps Marketplace
NetworkWorld.com
... Standard and Education editions of Google Apps. Applications are linked to the marketplace via REST Web services and APIs including OpenID and OAuth. ...
Google unveils online store for business applications The FINANCIAL
all 1,110 news articles »
9 Mar 2010 at 11:19pm
More related news on: REST SOA OR "service-oriented architecture" OR "Web services"

Related books at Amazon.com

Restful Web Services
Restful Web Services
by Leonard Richardson, Sam Ruby, David Heinemeier Hansson
Average Customer Review: 4.5 stars based on 44 reviews.
Customer Review: RESTful Web Services is one of the best books I have recently read. Before starting reading I have attended a few presentations on REST and I naively thought I became quite familiar with it. Now I can see how ignorant I was about it... This book really helped me to deeply understand what REST is all about and why it is becoming so p...
RESTful Web Services Cookbook: Solutions for Improving Scalability and Simplicity
RESTful Web Services Cookbook: Solutions for Improving Scalability and Simplicity
by Subbu Allamaraju
Publisher: O'Reilly Media
Publication Date: March 2010
RESTful .NET: Build and Consume RESTful Web Services with .NET 3.5
RESTful .NET: Build and Consume RESTful Web Services with .NET 3.5
by Jon Flanders
Average Customer Review: 4.5 stars based on 9 reviews.
Customer Review: There are two things I really liked about Flanders' book: (1) It has a gradual progression from concept to implementation that is both easy to read and very structured. It made the whole book very valuable. The initial section on REST is concise and either enlightening or revision, depending on what you already know. The transition t...
RESTful PHP Web Services
RESTful PHP Web Services
by Samisa Abeysinghe
Average Customer Review: 4 stars based on 6 reviews.
Customer Review: This book does a great job of rapidly exposing the user to RESTFul design patterns while at the same time providing many great examples for reference. By the end of the book, even a novice programmer will be comfortable with RESTFul web service design. You do need experience with PHP to work through the samples.
RESTful Java Web Services
RESTful Java Web Services
by Jose Sandoval
Average Customer Review: 3.5 stars based on 3 reviews.
Customer Review: I bet this book will be outdated in a year, but I like that it's a straightforward approach current status of RESTful frameworks in java.
More related books: Search Amazon.com for Representational State Transfer