Web services

Web Services and API's are one of the major web services that come with Digital Transformation - implementing easy to use self service - Basically across everything.

Web service Explained

A Web service is a collection of open protocols and standards which are widely used for exchanging data between systems or applications.

Software applications are written using various programming languages and running on multiple platforms. It allows you to use web services to exchange data over computer networks.

Types of Web Services

Web services should be implemented in various ways. The two types of widely used web services are SOAP and RESTful web services.

SOAP – SOAP is a protocol which was designed before REST came into the picture. The main idea behind creating SOAP was to ensure that programs built on different platforms and programming languages could securely exchange data.

REST – This was designed specifically for working with components such as media components, files, or even objects on a particular hardware device. Any web service which is defined on the principles of REST can be called a RESTful web service. REST uses the normal HTTP verbs of GET, POST, PUT and DELETE for working with the required components.

Features of Web API

Here are some essential features of API:

Efficiency
Wider reach
Customizable
Personalization
Data ownership
Easy integration with GUI
Time effective
Language-independent

Features of Web Services

Here are some essential features of web services:

Loosely coupled
Synchronous or asynchronous functionality
Ability to support remote procedure calls
Supports document exchange

API Interfaces

The fast ongoing Ditital Transformation demand systems to be communicating – communication will be performed over web services and/or API interfaces.

We are super experts when it come to API integration between platforms – we have been implemented API interfaces for the past 20 years for the biggest companies getting communication floating.

Postman and API interfaces

When we implement new API interfaces will we normally always start by adding the API payload to the famous API tool called POSTMAN – it allow us to perform API calls without any coding.

When all testing have been performed will our implementation process begin.

Difference between API and Web Services

Here are important differences between Web services and API.

Web Service

All web services are API’s

It support XML

You need a SOAP protocol to send + receive – so not light weight

Used by clients understanding XML

Web service uses 3 styles REST, SOAP, XML-RPC for communication

It provides support only for HTTP protocol

API

All API’s are not web services

Respons are formated into JSON, XML or any other format

API has light weight architecture

It can used by client understanding JSON or XML

API can be used for any type od communication

It provide support for HTTPs protoco: URLrequest/response headers

Advantage of API Services

API supports traditional CRUD (Create Read Update Delete) actions as it works with HTTP verbs GET, PUT, POST, and DELETE.
API helps you to expose service data to the browser
It is based on HTTP, which is easy to define, expose in REST-full way.

Advantage of Web Services

Offers faster communications within and across organizations
Each service exists independently of other services.
Interoperability has the highest priority.
Using Web services, your application helps you to publish its message or function to the rest of the world.
Web services help solve interoperability issues by giving different applications a way to link their data.
Web services help you to exchange data between different applications and different platforms.
It allows applications to communicate, exchange data, and shared services among themselves.
Web services are specifically designed to be used as a web page request and help you to receive data.
It serves as building blocks which makes it easy to reuse web service components in other services. Web Services are deployed on internet standards such as standard Apache, and Axis2. It provides WSDL, HTTP,

Disadvantage of API Services

Creating API is a very time-consuming process
A fixed scale is necessary
Imprecise boundary delineation
To create API, programming knowledge is necessary
Maintenance cost is very high
It can crash when testing API

Disadvantage of Web Services

It does not access from browser
Not leverage emerging Web developments (Semantic Web, AJAX XMLHttpRequest, etc.)
Some web services are simple to use, but there are some flaws of using it.
Any time one creates a service to handle a variety of customers, there is a demand for specialized machine requirements.
The HTTP protocol is not reliable, so it does not offer any guarantee of delivery of the response.