REST 101

REST (Representational state transfer) is going to be the standard for logistics in future. I view it as a big improvement over web services or SOAP. It is quick and simple to setup and let systems connect easily. Information can also be exchanged without complex setup.

Why REST?

REST had solved a majority of issues from web services with standardisation. The payload exchange format can be rendered easily with HTML, XML or JSON. It uses common http protocol like GET, POST, PUT and DELETE. The best part of connection is its statelessness as in http protocol. This means you do not need to worry or keep track of your connection.

When to REST?

Majority of cloud platform and applications are REST ready. You will need to consider migration of your legacy connection for REST endpoints. With this change, you will often reduce the reliance of ETL tools required by older applications. You will also find that you can scale with Cloud easily with REST.

Generally, cloud architecture are REST capable and ready. You will find that you can communicate easily from on premise to cloud using REST. Therefore, you should upgrade your application with REST capabilities to create your networked system with your partners.