Beyond REST
May 2016 • Presentation
Yogeshwar Srikrishnan (Rackspace)
Writing APIs in a RESTful style is growing in popularity, but not all uses cases are good fits. This presentation overviews 10 alternative styles.
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Abstract
Writing APIs in a RESTful style is growing in popularity, but not all uses cases are good fits. Several interesting alternative technologies are emerging. This presentation provides overviews of the following alternatives styles:
- Binary protocols are serialization mechanisms that
demand neutral, platform-independent formats
and allow data interchange over heterogeneous
distributed systems. New sets of protocols support
cross-language serialization.
- Protocol buffers, developed by Google, are
language- and platform-neutral, extensible
mechanisms for serializing structured data.
- Apache Thrift is an RPC framework as well as a
binary communication protocol developed at
Facebook and aiming at "scalable cross-language
services development."
- Apache Avro is a language-neutral data
serialization system.
- Orchestration/Experience APIs shoot for the
optimal user experience that is so important with
the proliferation of user devices and phones.
These user interfaces reduce network calls and
provide an elegant way to query.
- Falcor, created by Netflix, is a JavaScript library for
efficient data fetching. Falcor powers Netflix’s mobile,
desktop, and TV applications.
- GraphQL is a query language created by Facebook.
It provides flexible syntax for describing the
capabilities and requirements of data models in a
client–server interaction.
- Asynchronous APIs provide alternatives to the
traditional request/response pattern through
asynchronous interactions.
- Advanced Message Queuing Protocol (AMQP) is
an open-standard, application-layer protocol for
message-oriented middleware.
- Apache KAFKA was initially founded by LinkedIn and is a distributed publish–subscribe messaging system.