Java Reference
In-Depth Information
services have low bandwidth requirements and require less resources for processing a mes-
sage. Consequently, RESTful web services are more scalable.
Although REST is conceptually simpler, the tooling support isn't as good as for SOAP.
Although WSDL now supports REST, it doesn't yet have wide market penetration. You
can't auto-generate clients, but writing code to invoke a service is straightforward, and
many platforms (for example, Java and iOS) have libraries that simplify the invocation of
a RESTful service.
Table 8.2
is a decision matrix to aid you in deciding between SOAP and REST. Also factor-
ing into your decision should be whether your application is already using web services.
Tabulate the positives for both technologies and then compare the scores. Based on your
needs, some factors might be more important than others.
Table 8.2. SOAP versus REST decision matrix
SOAP
REST
Requires tooling support (auto-generate
clients)
X
Lacks tools for creating/editing WSDL
X
Low overhead
X
Limited bandwidth (many clients)
X
Operations map to CRUD
X
Processing XML documents X
Transactions, coordination, and the like X
Message routing/processing
X
X
Requires SMTP
X
Non-XML output (JSON/text/graphics/
etc.)
X
Point-to-point messages
X
Validates incoming/outgoing messages
against schema
X
Now that we've provided a baseline for helping you decide between technologies, let's
summarize and move on to JPA.
