In the present-day world of heightened connectivity, the demand for Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) is growing every day. Software solutions must have the capability to integrate with third-party applications to improve user experience and data sharing capabilities. Through APIs, businesses can also collect data from various third-party applications that can later be utilized while analyzing business outcomes.

APIs play a pivotal role in software solutions, and it is essential that development teams consider the API-first approach.

• While employing the API-first approach for software development, teams must focus on the necessary integration points. This way teams can improve their efficiency and productivity by formulating API requirements prior to software development, and not during it.

REST API

A well-deserved predecessor to SOAP (simple object access protocol) has been revolutionizing the data sharing landscape since the 2000s. While SOAP did the job of data transfer across the internet, it was insanely complex to build and use for a protocol that started with the word ‘simple’. However, in the beginning, the goal was scalability as opposed to the current necessity of everything being user-friendly and intuitive.

Writing of user-friendliness, if a SOAP request call failed to retrieve the necessary data, there were no response codes like the HTTP ones to share information on why the request failed. All in all, REST was a much-needed technology in the fast-paced internet era.

Writing of user-friendliness, if a SOAP request call failed to retrieve the necessary data, there were no response codes like the HTTP ones to share information on why the request failed. All in all, REST was a much-needed technology in the fast-paced internet era.

• Flexibility: RESTful architecture allows for diversity in the data formats that an API can handle. While in SOAP, data could only be represented in XML files. It can therefore return diverse data formats and even handle multiple calls and types of calls. This flexibility is a blessing to the developer who would like to scale the solutions as and when they see fit.
• Re-usability: Unlike private APIs, RESTful public API need not be developed from scratch. For basic data sharing/ collecting functionalities, there are pre-built APIs out there that can be customized to fit into software solutions. The re-usability of REST APIs sure does save developers a lot of time from having to cook up APIs as and when they need, thereby improves the efficiency of solutions development.

The Downside of REST

While RESTful principles encompass the 4 core elements of REST architecture - uniform interface, statelessness, client-server, and cache, are flexible enough to carry out seamless data exchange, there were a few concerns which are as follows.

Security

Developers are embracing RESTful API architecture while developing software solutions to ensure their customers have no trouble integrating it with their current workflows. However, the more RESTful architecture encourages integration, the less authentication and authorization the API has – which makes it easier for hackers with malicious intent to break through and wreak havoc. APIs that have relatively low authentication and authorization are also a prime target for code injection.

• One way of eliminating the risk factor of REST APIs is to restrict the number of requests – by implementing rate-limits. Establish quotas of requests that are allowed at a time. Any abnormal behavior in the number of requests sent to disrupt the API and misuse it, must be dealt with quickly and sincerely.

Testing

APIs, being the connector between solutions, applications, servers, etc. poses a challenge to testers. As APIs enable communications between servers by assigning data values to parameters, it is quite challenging to test all possible data combinations and permutations for parameters. It is absolutely necessary that all parameters be tested, as leaving any out would be detrimental to the reliability of the API.

• The only way forward is rigorous testing. Apart from having thorough test coverage plans, teams must release the beta version into the real-world environment and tackle the bugs as and when they come. Pick sections of the application that are not that important and release the REST API, and wait for end customers to divulge possible parameter combinations which can then be used as testing parameters.

We’re Here for You

As the need for APIs are on the rise, so are the number of APIs. Managing APIs, while maneuvering through the above-mentioned challenges may seem daunting; but with the right partner, it can be planned.

Partner with us today, for seamless REST API Management Services.