Representational State Transfer (REST)

Definition

Representational State Transfer (REST) is a Web service design pattern. It is different from SOAP based web services. REST services do not require XML, SOAP or WSDL service-API definitions. The concept originally comes from a PhD's dissertation

Where to use & benefits

• Can be used for any system design.
• Basic elements: Resources, URL and simple operations.
• Resources may be web site, an HTML page, an XML document, a web service, a physical device, etc.
• Any resource can be identified by URL.
• Simple operations via HTTP API (GET,POST,PUT,DELETE).
• Easy to understand each service does by examing the URL.
• No rules, no bottleneck, no central point of failure.
• Easy to implement.

CRUD: 

GET = "give me some info" (Retrieve)
POST = "here's some update info" (Update)
PUT = "here's some new info" (Create)
DELETE = "delete some info" (Delete)

payload: form data