REST API Design, Development & Management

Provides link for summary decks download.

ACME Travels is a fictitious company that is going through a crisis as they did not keep up to speed with the technology. Their CTO has a vision to create an API driven organization.

This quick lecture describes the ACME case study that will be used in discussions of various concepts discussed in this course. All APIs created in the course are for ACME travels.

In this course multiple tools will be used. This quick lecture describes the tools that will be used in this course. Students are not expected to have any prior experience with any of the tools discussed

In this lecture students will learn about the free MongoDB sandbox environment offered by http://mlab.com

Samples in this course will use the MongoDB instance on mlab.com

Walkthrough of a scenario to explain what an API is.

Students will learn about the 

• Issues with using XML/RPC for mobile applications
• History of RESTful API
• How so many organizations are leveraging REST API 

Students will learn the core concepts of RESTful API. At end of the lecture they would understand the following terms:

• Representational state
• Resources
• State transfer

Also covers the demonstration of a publicly available REST API from Walmart.

Checks students understanding of general concepts of API

Students will learn about the three types of APIs.

Just using the JSON+HTTP does not automatically make the API RESTful. In this student will get a overview of the REST constraints described by Roy Fielding in his dissertation paper.

Student will learn about the benefit of following the "Client-Server" constraint which is considered the foundation for the RESTful API.

Student will learn about the constraint#2 Uniform Interface + the 4 guiding principles that are part of the Uniform Interface constraint.

Student will learn about the "Statelessness" constraint. 

In this lecture student will learn 

• about the HTTP Caching headers
• how the HTTP Cache-Control can be used to achieve better performance
• how the caching strategy counterbalances the "performance" hit due to "statelessness"

Student how "Layered System" architecture enables a incremental evolutionary approach.

This lecture describes the (optional) REST constraint referred to as the "Code on Demand"

At the end of this lecture the Student will be able to evaluate the maturity level of an organization from the perspective of adoption of RESTful architecture & practices. 

Test student's knowledge of REST architectural constraints.

Student will learn about:

• the API value chain
• "common sense" design principles :)

Student will learn about:

• Conventions used for "Base URL"
• resource naming for REST API. Examples of how Facebook/Walmart ... are naming their resources

Describes how to implement the API CRUD operations. Covers the use of HTTP verbs, status codes and how to implement the support for multiple data formats.

In this lecture students will learn how to create a simple API in Node. At the end of the lecture students are expected to be able to extend the vacations API to add more operations.

Students will how to implement error handling in REST API

This quiz will test the student's understanding of how to implement basic operations & error handling for REST API.

Walk through of the code for demonstrating the error handling for REST API

Code available at https://www.github.com/acloudfan

Test student's knowledge of designing the error handling for their API

Students will learn about common changes required for API after they have been released. Also included is a discussion on practices for handling API changes. 

• Breaking  change & how to handle it
• Non-breaking change

Student will learn the  common version strategies for the REST API. Also understand the API lifeservice from version perspective.

Students will learn 

• the benefits of Caching
• practices around what to cache and the design decisions

Student will lear how to use the HTTP cache control directive

API implementations can use the HTTP header Cache-Control to take advantage of the HTTP protocol built in support for caching. In this lecture students will learn the various directives (instructions) they can use for building API with cache support. 

This lecture demonstrates the use of the HTTP caching header from the Node JS API.

Checks students knowledge of general concepts of caching and Cache-Control directives.

Its common for many popular API providers (Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest...) to support partial response in their APIs. In this lecture student will learn the benefits of supporting partial responses and they will see a demo of building API with support for partial responses (ACME Hotels API)

In this lecture students will learn common ways in which Pagination support may be implemented in an API. At the end of this lecture they would learn how to build pagination in  a MongoDB/Node application using the limit/skip functions

Checks students understanding of how to design API with support for partial responses and pagination

Student will learn about security aspects related to  API:

• Authentication
• Authorization
• Functional attacks

Basic authentication is the simplest form of authentication that may be applied to the API. Student will learns concepts and then understand how to code Basic Auth in Node JS code.

Tests the student on their understanding of Basic authentication

Student will learn:

• What are tokens?
• Jason Web Token (JWT) standard
• Securing Node REST API with JWT

Checks student's understanding of Token based authentication and JWT

The API Key/Secret is the most common way the API providers protect the API. In this lecture student will learn about:

• implementation of the key/secret
• practices for the implementation of the key/secret
• technical considerations for implementing key/secret base auth

Tests students understanding of concept of client key & secret 

Student will learn the concepts of OAuth2.0. 

In this lecture, student will also learn how Spotify (Streaming music) has implemented the OAuth2 for their public API.

Tests student's understanding of concepts of API authorization and OAuth 2.0

Hackers are always looking for threats/vulnerabilities in publicly available API. Student will learn abut common types of attack. In the lecture the student will also see a demonstration of a "SQLInjection" attack.

In this lecture student will learn:

• contract first approach
• collaborative specifications development process
• different REST API specifications standard
• introduction to Swagger/OAI standard

Checks student's knowledge of basic concepts of REST API specifications

In this lecture student will get an overview of he Swagger/OAI + YAML specifications. Also discuss the various editor options for Swagger/OIA

Tests the student on their knowledge of Swagger

Students will learn:

• structure of the Swagger/OAI specs document
• about the tools for Swagger/OAI document editing
• to create the Swagger/OAI specifications in YAML format

Checks student's understanding of the specifications format

Student will learn how to define the following in Swagger/OAI specs:

• Request/response schema
• Security definitions
• Parameters

Student will learn how to create Paths/Operations in the Swagger/OAI specifications. Walkthrough of the developer documentation generated from the specifications.

Checks student's understanding of the Paths/Resources

In this lecture student will learn about the 

• Activities that fall under the scope of API management
• Common API management infrastructure setup (Agent & Proxy model)

In this lecture student will learn about the practices for managing the API "Lifecycle" that has 5 stages. 

How API developer productivity is enhanced by way of adoption of the API management platforms.

Demonstration of specification import process on the "Mulesoft" and "IBM API Connect" platform

Generate the API proxy on "Apigee" platform using the vacation specification generated in previous section. Apply policies to control the behavior of the API.

Student will learn about the essential features of the API developer portal. At the end of the lecture will be in a position to decide whether to build or buy a portal for their API.

At end of the lecture student will see how easily an off the shelf developer portal (Mulesoft) can easily be customized.

Students will learn about:

• security best practices
• the need for the minimal security (key) for the API
• how API management based solution can be used for key authentication (demo on Apigee)

Student will learn 

• why an API provider MUST carry out traffic management
• about types of traffic management policies (Quota, Spike arrest, Rate limiting)


Lecture also includes demo of the traffic policies in action on Apigee platform.

API Analytics is an important aspect of API management. There are multiple types of analytics collected on the API platform. Student will learn abut the common analytics collected on API platforms and how it can be leveraged by the developers.

Students will learn about the good practice that states "Treat your API like a product if you would like to sell it like a product". 

Also the student will understand the

• concept of monetization
• various monetization models
• technology considerations from the realization perspective