Practical REST in Data-centric Business Applications: The Case of Cofidis Hispania

Abstract

This chapter describes the migration of the IT environment in an important financial institution, from a mainframe-centric to a Web-centric environment in which the REST architectural style had a key role in the reference architecture that supported the new software development projects. We will describe how the restrictions imposed by the REST architectural style addressed the most critical constraints as well as some other challenges by means of a real-world, three-year project that is still ongoing at the time of writing. In particular, we will detail how each of the restrictions of the REST architectural style has contributed to address different software architecture requirements, both functional and non-functional, and how they have been materialized in the Java platform. We will detail advantages and compromises, strengths and weaknesses, and areas with the most interesting challenges.