In the past, building software was done using monolithic architectures. However, that approach has become outdated because it doesn’t scale well and makes it difficult to maintain and update large applications. Nowadays, most developers prefer to use microservices architecture. What is a microservices architecture? How does it work? And what’s the role of REST APIs in this context? In this article I’ll try to answer these questions so you can better understand how REST APIs fit into an overall microservices ecosystem.
Table of Contents
What is a microservices architecture?
Microservices architecture is a way to build applications. A microservice is an independent service, which means it can be deployed independently and communicate with others using REST APIs.
A microservice should be small in size, focused on a single task, loosely coupled with other services (they don’t share data), autonomous (able to make decisions about how best to fulfill its responsibilities), and resilient against failure of one or more components within the system.
What’s the role of REST APIs in a microservices architecture?
REST APIs are the glue that hold microservices together. They enable communication between different services, making it possible for them to share data and functionality.
REST APIs can be used in two ways: as a client-facing interface for users or other applications, or as an internal interface between microservices within your organization’s application stack. In both cases, they provide a way for different parts of your application architecture–whether it’s one big monolithic app or many smaller ones – to communicate with each other reliably and consistently without requiring complex programming logic on either side of each interaction.
How to build REST APIs for your microservices
The first step is to use a micro services framework. This will allow you to create your REST APIs and make sure they’re easy to maintain. If you don’t have one already, we recommend using Spring Boot because it’s very well documented and has plenty of support from the community.
The second step is choosing an API framework for your microservices architecture: we recommend Restlet because it supports both JSON serialization libraries (Jackson and GSON) out-of-the-box, which makes creating new APIs easier than ever before! You can also use Swagger UI if you want more control over how your documentation looks like – however this comes at the cost of having less flexibility when writing code yourself as opposed to relying on auto generation tools such as Swagger Codegen or JAXRS Support Library Generator.
How can I test my endpoint for API calls?
As you’re building your microservices architecture, it’s important to test the endpoints of each service. Postman or curl can be used to test an endpoint by sending requests with different parameters, headers and bodies. You should also test authentication methods (OAuth 2) and response codes (200/404/500).
Microservices work best when you use them together with a REST API to connect them
REST APIs are a good way to connect microservices. They’re easy to use and widely supported by other systems, making it possible for you to build a simple dashboard for monitoring services. REST APIs can also be used in conjunction with other technologies like GraphQL or gRPC if you prefer them over REST.
Conclusion
We hope you’ve learned a lot about how to use REST APIs in your microservices architecture, and we’re excited to see what you build. If you want more information on this topic, check out our other articles about microservices on our blog!
