Build and deploy your REST Web API in seconds, zero coding required? Since REST utilizes CRUD (Create, Retrieve, Update, and Delete), it is very easy to understand whether you are just starting out as a developer or have years of experience. It can be reused with different projects which saves time as well. It’s also very popular and according to Cloud Elements’ 2017 State of API Integration report, 83 percent of APIs now use REST. Here’s an article which goes into more depth but these are the highlights.

SOAP vs. REST: Primary Differences. REST operates through a solitary, consistent interface to access named resources. It’s most commonly used when you’re exposing a public API over the Internet. SOAP, on the other hand, exposes components of application logic as services rather than data. Additionally, it operates through different interfaces. To put it simply, REST accesses data while SOAP performs operations through a more standardized set of messaging patterns. Still, in most cases, either REST or SOAP could be used to achieve the same outcome (and both are infinitely scalable), with some differences in how you’d configure it. SOAP was originally created by Microsoft, and it’s been around a lot longer than REST. This gives it the advantage of being an established, legacy protocol. But REST has been around for a good time now, as well. Plus, it entered the scene as a way to access web services in a much simpler way than possible with SOAP by using HTTP.

Begin with the API User in Mind: Bestselling author and architect Sam Newman’s great book on microservices provides a powerful alternative to the database-driven approach for designing REST web services. It’s useful even if you don’t plan to use microservices. Newman suggests that you divide your application into bounded contexts (similar to business areas). Each bounded context should provide an explicit interface for those who wish to interact with it. Implementation details of the bounded context that don’t need to be exposed to the outside world are hidden behind the interface. You should use this explicit interface as the basis for your API design. Start by asking yourself what business capabilities do the API user needs, rather than what data that should be shared. In other words, ask yourself what does this bounded context do? and then ask yourself what data does it need to do that?

When I ran InstantWebAPI I get an error message about writing rights. How can this be fixed? If you created the stub solution as an administrator, then InstantWebAPI needs to be run as an administrator as well. We have a database with 80 tables. How many tables and views can this software generate the code for? This code was tested against databases with more than 100 tables. Web API project code gets generated pretty fast, but generating Unit Test code it might take a while. We recommend generating the code for a limited number of tables at a time. We have a database with multiple schema. Can the code be generated for all the schemas at the same time? No, this version of the software only allows generating the code for one schema at a time. Further customization can be added by sending a requests to Customer Service. See additional details on Web API code generator from MS SQL.