Come discover what in the world are RESTFul services and what are its benefits over other API building technologies. We will cover the basics of HTTP representation protocols, RESTful routing, security, authentication and testing. We will then move to modeling RESTful resources via an open source tool called Relax; Restful Tools For Lazy Experts and finally scaling it with the Adobe API Manager.

1. RESTFul Tools for Lazy Experts
Luis Majano @lmajano

2. Who am I
• Luis Majano
• Computer Engineer
• Imported from El Salvador
• CEO of Ortus Solutions
• Creator of all things Box

3. What is REST?
Benefits
Principles
Good Design
Tools
Infrastructure
Development Stacks

4. REST = Representational StateTransfer
• An architectural style (2000)
• Adhere to best practices
• Low ceremony web services
• Leverage the HTTP/S Protocol
• Resource Oriented not RPC Oriented

5. Resource vs RPC
/user/:usernameResource
Abstracted
Can be Nested
Can point to any internal RPC call
Can be layered
Flexible
getUser( ‘lmajano’ )Remote Procedure Call
Coupling
Static
Refactoring Problems
Inflexible

6. BENEFITS
• Abstractions
• Easier to scale
• Easy to refactor
• Easier to layer
• Less bandwidth
• Many tools

7. RESTFUL PRINCIPLES
Addressability - Resources
Objects/Resources can be addressable via a URI
/api/user/luis
/api/user/tweets

8. RESTFUL PRINCIPLES
Uniformity
Leveraging HTTPVerbs + HTTP Headers

9. Representations
Models in different formats: json, xml, rss, pdf, etc
200 OK
Content-Type: application/json+userdb
{
"users": [
{
"id": 1,
"name": "Emil",
"country: "Sweden",
"links": [
{
"href": "/user/1",
"rel": "self",
"method": "GET"
},
{
"href": "/user/1",
"rel": "edit",
"method": "PUT"
},
{
"href": "/user/1",
"rel": "delete",
"method": "DELETE"
}
]
},
{
"id": 2,
"name": "Adam",
"country: "Scotland",
"links": [
{
"href": "/user/2", RESTFUL PRINCIPLES

10. RESTFUL PRINCIPLES
Stateless
Performance, reliability, and ability to scale

11. LET’S APPLY THESE PRINCIPLES

12. A Good RESTFul Design Offers
1. Resource Naming
2. HTTPVerb Usage
3. Meaningful Status Codes
4. Modeling + Documentation
5. Uniformity
6. Security
7. Versioning (Modularity)
8. Performance
9. Testability
10.Tools

13. 1. Resource Naming
1. URI Centric
2. Use nouns, avoid verbs (HTTPVerbs)
3. Deeper you go in the resource the more detail
4. URL Params (Options)
5. Headers (Auth+Options)
6. This is where a modeling tool can help
/customers
Get - List customers
Post - Create new customer
/customer/:id
Get - Show customer
Put - Update customer
Delete - Delete customer
/customer/:id/invoices
Get - All invoices
Post - Create invoice
/customer/:id/invoice/:invoiceID
Get - Show invoice
Put - Update invoice
Delete -Delete invoice

14. 2. HTTP Verb Usage
Operation Verb
Create POST
Read GET
Update PUT
Single item update PATCH
Delete DELETE
Info/Metadata HEAD
Resource Doc OPTIONS

15. 3. Meaningful Status Codes
Code Description
200 OK, usually a representation
201 New resource, check headers for URI
202 Accepted (ASYNC), check headers or response for tokens
203 Non-authoritative (Usually a cached response)
204 No Content, but processed
205 Reset Content
206 Partial Results (Usually pagination)
Code Description
400 Bad Request
401 Unauthorized
402 Payment Required
403 Forbidden
404 Not Found
405 Method not allowed
406 Not acceptable (Validation, invalid data)
408 RequestTimeout
410 Resource Gone
429 Too Many Requests
500 Server Error

16. 4. MODELING + DOCUMENTATION

17. 5.Relax Modeling, Tester, Docs
• ColdBox Module
• Model RESTFul Services
• Scaffold ColdBox Routes
• Documentation Exporter (HTML,PDF,etc)
• RelaxURLTester
• Swagger Import/Export -> API Manager
box install relax —saveDev

18. RELAX MODEL
function configure(){
// This is where we define our RESTful service, this is usually
// our first place before even building it, we spec it out.
this.relax = {
// Service Title
title = "ForgeBox IO",
// Service Description
description = "This API powers ForgeBox",
// Service entry point, can be a single string or name value pairs to denote tiers
//entryPoint = "http://www.myapi.com",
entryPoint = {
dev = "http://localhost:9095/api/v1",
stg = "http://forgebox.stg.ortussolutions.com/api/v1",
prd = "http://forgebox.io/api/v1"
},
// Does it have extension detection via ColdBox
extensionDetection = true,
// Valid format extensions
validExtensions = "json",
// Does it throw exceptions when invalid extensions are detected
throwOnInvalidExtension = false
};
// Global API Headers
// globalHeader( name="x-app-token", description="The secret application token", required=true, type="string" );

19. 5.Uniformity
• Common Response object
• Common Controller (MVC)
• HTTPVerb Security
• Access Security
• Error Handling Uniformity
• Response Uniformity
Error!
Security
Where Frameworks Will Help!

20. RESPONSE OBJECT/**
* HTTP Response model for the API
*/
component accessors="true" {
property name="format" type="string" default="json";
property name="data" type="any" default="";
property name="error" type="boolean" default="false";
property name="binary" type="boolean" default="false";
property name="messages" type="array";
property name="location" type="string" default="";
property name="jsonCallback" type="string" default="";
property name="jsonQueryFormat" type="string" default="query";
property name="contentType" type="string" default="";
property name="statusCode" type="numeric" default="200";
property name="statusText" type="string" default="OK";
property name="errorCode" type="numeric" default="0";
property name="responsetime" type="numeric" default="0";
property name="cachedResponse" type="boolean" default="false";
property name="headers" type="array";
/**
* Constructor
*/

21. BASE CONTROLLER/**
* Around handler for all functions
*/
function aroundHandler( event, rc, prc, targetAction, eventArguments ){
try{
var stime = getTickCount();
// prepare our response object
prc.response = getModel( "Response@core" );
// Scope the incoming user request
prc.oCurrentUser = securityService.getUserSession();
// prepare argument execution
var args = { event = arguments.event, rc = arguments.rc, prc = arguments.prc };
structAppend( args, arguments.eventArguments );
// Secure the call
if( isAuthorized( event, rc, prc, targetAction ) ){
// Execute action
var simpleResults = arguments.targetAction( argumentCollection=args );
}
} catch( Any e ){
// Log Locally
log.error( "Error calling #event.getCurrentEvent()#: #e.message# #e.detail#", e );
// Log to BugLogHQ

22. 6. SECURITY
SSL
HTTP Verb Security
Request Throttling
Client API Keys or Tokens (Headers/Params)
API Key + Secret Encryption Keys (Like Amazon)
Basic Authentication (At least its something!)
IP Based Filtering/Tagging (Programmatic/Firewall/Etc)
oAuth
Adobe API Manager

23. • Upgrade/Downgrade Paths
• Scale
• No more monoliths
• Implementations:
• Frameworks
• Adobe API Manager
• Both
7. VERSIONING (MODULARITY)

24. 7. Versioning (Modularity)
• ColdBox Modules - HMVC
• Root api module
• Contain commonalities (Uniformity)
• Sub-modules as versions
• v1 - /api/v1
• v2 - /api/v2
• Reusability + Scalability
• Adobe API Manager

25. 8. PERFORMANCE
• Web Server (Nginx)
• Gzip Compression
• Resource Caching
• HTTP2
• SSL Keep-Alive Connections
• Throttling
• Distributed Caching
• Couchbase
• Redis
• Terracota
• Frameworks: CacheBox + ColdBox
• Adobe API Manager
• Take time in a cache strategy
• Cache Invalidation

26. 8. PERFORMANCE
• ColdBox Event Caching
• Leverages CacheBox
• Any Cache Backend
• Caching Resources
• Rich Invalidation API

27. Looks familiar?
9. TESTABILITY

28. WHY PEOPLE DON’T TEST
COMFORT

29. WHY PEOPLE DON’T TEST
New Methodology
New Learned Behavior
It is a leap….

30. BIGGEST LIE IN SOFTWARE DEV
Don’t worry, we will create the
tests and refactor it later!

31. • Just do it!
• You will get dirty
• It can hurt (a little)
• Learned behavior
NO MORE EXCUSES
IT WILL ACCELERATE YOUR
DEVELOPMENT

32. BDD TESTING

33. 10. Tools
1. Modeling/Documentation/Testing
1. Relax*, Postman, Swagger, Gelato
2. API Management
1. Adobe*, Mulesoft, IBM, Kong
3. LoadTesting
1. JMeter, Paessler
4. ColdBox MVC
1. cbSwagger Module

34. 10. Adobe API Manager
1. Scale your API’s
2. Tons of Features:
1. Rate Limiting
2. SLAs
3. Swagger Support
4. Caching
5. Versioning
6. Security
7. Analytics
8. SOAPTools
9. Notifications

35. Technology Stack
RESTStack
ColdBox MVC
Relax
cbSwagger
RollbarCouchbase
Nginx
Adobe API

36. A Good RESTFul Design Offers
1. Resource Naming
2. HTTPVerb Usage
3. Meaningful Status Codes
4. Modeling + Documentation
5. Uniformity
6. Security
7. Versioning (Modularity)
8. Performance
9. Testability
10.Tools

37. Resources
• Relax: github.com/coldbox-modules/coldbox-relax
• Swagger SDK: github.com/coldbox-modules/swagger-sdk
• cbSwagger Module: github.com/coldbox-modules/cbSwagger
• TestBox : ortussolutions.com/products/testbox
• CommandBox: ortussolutions.com/products/commandbox
• Slack: boxteam.herokuapp.com
• CFML Slack: #box-products

38. Thank
you!