Why do REST APIs provide more flexibility for digital services?
Aeonics has always oriented its research and development specifically around three complementary axes: (1) digital sobriety, (2) cybersecurity, and (3) the efficiency of information systems. Digital services based on REST APIs are a fundamental response that guarantees the consistency and sustainability of application development.
The principle of operation by API is to separate the business logic (backend) from the way information is presented to the user (frontend). An API defines how information exchanges take place, which subsequently allows each party to evolve without affecting the other party. In this way, you can anticipate future needs and evolutions in a flexible way.
REST APIs specifically are based on web technologies (HTTP) to exchange data. As it is a very simple and widespread protocol, this maximizes short and long term compatibility. REST APIs generally exchange data in JSON format, which is a way of structuring data so that applications can use it easily. This format is, once again, very simple and allows any type of information to be transmitted.
For example, an application retrieves a list of products by calling a REST API. The list is encoded in JSON format (the way the data is represented as structured text), then sent to the application using the HTTP protocol (the way the information is transmitted). Another application can just as well retrieve the same list of products in another context completely independently of the first application.
Link between REST API and Microservice
REST APIs are an effective way to set up microservices, i.e. functional units responsible for a specific business problem. In general, we speak of a microservice for a set of REST APIs which relate to the same business need and which can be deployed independently. Meanwhile, since Aeonics has the ability to deploy each API as independent and autonomous services, it allows each API to be managed as a microservice on its own.
Just like the decoupling between the business logic and the graphic part, Aeonics makes it possible to segment the REST APIs in order to allow their independent evolution while limiting the impacts on the other components. With a low-tech approach that can appear against the tide, or life-saving depending on the case, Aeonics is able to offer an extremely simple and effective solution for managing a set of microservices.
Importance of the security of REST APIs
Cybersecurity is an extremely delicate aspect to ensure data confidentiality, but also to limit attack vectors and allow access to be strictly managed. Aeonics provides many automatic checks, which prevents the most common errors. In addition, the security layer is transversal, which eliminates risks upstream and thus guarantees that the system is used only to process legitimate requests.
Since security is managed globally, Aeonics helps simplify the development and deployment of REST APIs by decoupling security updates to respond to new threats in a flexible way. Each aspect of digital services (graphics, business, security) can be managed independently to form a robust and reliable whole that can evolve and adapt to new requirements.
