Extensible Web Service API

The only constant in life is change, and this is no different for Service-oriented Architecture (SOA). Services must be built with this in mind: that they will have to adapt to new or changing requirements. Extensibility is the ability for services to adapt whilst preserving existing consumer contracts.

We would expect the following types of changes to services to have no impact on other consumers:
- internal source code changes
- interface changes
- take on of new consumers
- environmental changes

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Java as a Service - Monitoring the Java Web Service API

One key aspect of managing your public REST web service API is understanding your client usage.

There are several options for doing this, including configuring your IP sprayer to do quota management, or facading your services with a 3rd party service management product like Layer 7 or SOA Software, but you might also consider the very simple Java web service based solution using the open source JAMon library.

The sample code below illustrates a simple per-IP address monitoring solution that you might customise to be per-account or whatever else is available in the HTTP request header.

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