REST API Web Services: Scalability, Flexibility, and Security

Application programming interfaces (APIs) come in many shapes and sizes. REST API Web Services are one of countless software architectural styles. Sometimes identifying their differences can be difficult. With so many different APIs, it's essential to know what they are AND how to use them. To help get you started, our team at Documoto would like to clarify what they are, provide common use cases, and how you can benefit from using them.

Read on to learn more about REST API Web Services and how your team can benefit from using them.

WHAT ARE REST API WEB SERVICES?

Representational State Transfer (REST) is a software architectural style developers apply to web APIs. REST is a set of guidelines that software can use to communicate over the internet to make integrations simple and scalable. REST APIs are the backbone of most web, mobile, and device applications today. They are used to identify data, content, algorithms, media, and other digital resources through web URLs.

HOW DO REST API WEB SERVICES WORK?

REST APIs come in handy because they help identify what type of resource is being used between components. They do this by translating four sets of data types. These are GET, PUT, POST and DELETE, otherwise known as reading, updating, creating, and deleting operations concerning resources.

WHAT ARE SOME COMMON USE CASES FOR REST API WEB SERVICES IN DOCUMOTO?

REST APIs are now available to all Documoto organizations. Publishers and Administrators benefit from REST APIs in the following ways:

1. Allows for automated data management between external systems and Documoto, reducing the need for Administrators to perform duplicate data entry.
2. Allows for automated publishing requests, reducing work for Publishers to create or update content in Documoto.

 Specific use cases include:

• Media: Automated retrieval and creation/update of books, media categories, and other media-related data in Documoto
• Organizations: Automated retrieval and creation/update of Organization data in Documoto
• Parts: Automated retrieval, creation/update, and supersession of part data in Documoto
• Publishing: Automated upload and publishing of page content from external sources into Documoto
• Tags: Automated retrieval and deletion of tag definitions in Documoto
• Users & User Groups: Automated retrieval, creation/update, deletion of users and user groups in Documoto

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF REST API WEB SERVICES?

There are many advantages of relying on REST APIs. Some of them include scalability, flexibility, independence, and security. The details of how each of these is beneficial are below.

1. Scalability: Development teams can scale the product without much difficulty because there is a separation between the client and the server.
2. Flexibility: REST-style APIs make data migration from one server to another easy. They also help with rolling out changes to a database.
3. Independence: Because the client and server work independently, REST APIs are also adaptable to the working syntax and platform, which offers opportunities to test several environments while developing.
4. Security: Enhanced security controls to match customers' specific business needs.

ALREADY HAVE A SOAP API BUT WOULD LIKE TO SWITCH TO A REST API?

No problem! If you are interested in creating a new integration or updating an existing one using Documoto's REST API Web Services, you can find the details in Documoto’s Knowledge Base. Need more help? Our dedicated Customer Success Managers are here to support you.

Don’t have a Documoto tenant yet? To learn more about how Documoto can help you gain traction with your aftermarket services, Schedule a demo today!