Mobility is no longer a nice-to-have, but a must-have in order to connect to customers. Mobile applications and the cloud continue to drive requirements for backend services. But according to surveys, 70% to 80 % of the time spent in mobile “app” development is building the backend services. These backend services are necessary to build meaningful applications that improve the customer’s journey. In addition, the growth in delivering solutions on the cloud requires data integration for both internal and external services. As a result, there is a shift occurring in the development of integration services away from Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA).
In the past Web Service Descriptive Language (WSDL) based on Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) was the de facto enterprise application integration architecture standard. However, as organizations develop mobile applications, their different lines of business require slight data requirements resulting in complexity around accessing backend data. SOA standards typically requires the client to understand the backend protocols and data formats. SOAP WSDL is now considered a legacy interface definition with the progressive move to RESTful Web services and the use of JSON format for transmitting data objects.
What is a web API?
A web API is the exposing of enterprise assets, data, or services that can be consumed through HTTP(S) protocol. The use of Representational State Transfer (REST) interface in web APIs is the most common because of the simplicity of the JSON data format. The JSON data format contains name and value pairs that are easy to understand. Last week Forrester Research recommended Perficient as a vendor for API strategy and delivery service providers. If you’re thinking about how APIs fit into your organization, here are some important considerations before undertaking an API program.
Why Mobile Backend-as-a-service (MBaaS)?
Building Mobile Backend-as-a-service (MBaaS) packages application functionality and exposes it using APIs. The Backend-as-a-service reuses common server side functionality communication protocols, authentication, auditing, and data transformation in order to reduce time to market for each mobile application. This reduces the amount of time spent on developing backend services because the server side development is focused on customizing for the specific line of business requirements. The advantage is that mobile “app” developers can focus on building beautiful and engaging applications.
Is “IMP SOAP and SOA dead?”
