OData is used to define best practices that are required to build and consume RESTful APIs. It helps you to find out changes, defining functions for reusable procedures and sending batch requests etc.
Some of the important features are −
  • OData provides facility for extension to fulfill any custom needs of your RESTful APIs.
  • REST stands for Representational State Transfer and it is sometimes spelled as "ReST".
  • It relies on a stateless, client-server, cacheable communication protocol. In virtually all cases, the HTTP protocol is used.
  • REST is defined as an architecture style for designing network applications.
  • OData helps you focus on your business logic while building RESTful APIs without having to worry about the approaches to define request and response headers, status codes, HTTP methods, URL conventions, media types, payload formats and query options etc.
  • OData RESTful APIs are easy to consume.

OData Service Life Cycle

The OData service life cycle includes span of an OData service. Given below are the key steps to be considered in an OData Service Life Cycle.
  • Activation of OData service.
  • Maintaining OData service.
  • Maintaining of models and services, up to the cleanup of the metadata cache.
  • RESTful applications use HTTP requests to post data to create or update, read data and delete data. REST uses HTTP for all four CRUD (Create/Read/Update/Delete) operations.
  • REST is a lightweight alternative to mechanisms like RPC (Remote Procedure Calls) and Web Services.

REST

REST is defined as an option for web services and Remote Procedure calls. It is used for designing network applications.
REST services like a web services and supports below features −
  • Work with firewalls
  • Language-independent
  • Standards-based
  • Not Platform dependent

REST Architecture

Given below are the components of the REST Architecture.

Resources

In REST, both the state and the functionality are presented as resources. Resources are the key element of a RESTful design, as opposed to "methods" or "services" used in RPC and SOAP Web Services.
RPC calls like "getProductName" and "getProductPrice" are not used in REST. You view the product data as a resource and this resource should contain all the required information.

Web of Resources

It means that a single resource should not contain detailed data and it contains links to additional web pages.

Client-Server

In REST client–server model, one component server can be other component client.

No Connection State

Each request should contain details about the connection to each client and should not reply on the previous connections to the same client.

Cachable

The protocol must allow the server to explicitly specify which resources may be cached, and for how long.

Proxy Servers

To improve performance and scalability, Proxy servers can be used. Any standard HTTP proxy can be used.

 Serkan AKKAVAK
Computer Engineer
ABAP Developer & SAP MM SD Consultant
Contact : serkurumsal@yandex.com