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Restful API

Uploaded by

suresh
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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#EP-5| More to Come!

How Do Startups Handle


Explosive Growth
Without Crashing?

Aditya Gund
@aditya-gund
Imagine You’re Building
an Online Store…
Scenario: You’re tasked with building an e-
commerce platform that can scale globally. Your
platform needs to allow users to browse products,
manage their carts, and checkout. It should also
integrate with third-party services for payments
and delivery. How do you ensure smooth
communication between various services?
This is where RESTful APIs come in. They allow
your different services to communicate
seamlessly using standard HTTP methods
(GET, POST, PUT, DELETE).
In large systems, REST enables loose coupling.
Services can evolve independently without
breaking other parts of the system.
Why RESTful APIs Are the
Preferred Choice?
Scenario: After launching the online store, you realize
that your front-end team wants to experiment with a
new framework, while the back-end team is
developing new payment integrations. You can’t
afford any disruptions to the user experience. This is
where REST shines.
Reason:
Statelessness: Each request is independent and
contains all necessary data, meaning there’s no
reliance on server-side sessions.In large systems,
REST enables loose coupling. Services can evolve
independently without breaking other parts of the
system.
Cacheability: Often accessed data like product
lists can be cached, reducing server load and
improving speed.
RESTful APIs work exceptionally well for scalable
architectures because of their stateless nature,
enabling services to scale horizontally without relying
on a centralized session store
Scaling Up – Handling
Traffic Spikes
Scenario: The store becomes a hit during a holiday
sale, and traffic spikes significantly. With RESTful APIs,
scaling becomes easy because each API request is
independent (stateless). When the load increases,
more servers can be added, and each request is
handled independently.
Example:
Imagine it’s Diwali. Your e-commerce platform is
experiencing millions of requests per minute.
Statelessness allows your system to distribute the
load across multiple servers without worrying
about session state.
Statelessness ensures horizontal scalability. Each
request is treated independently, and you don’t need
to store session information on the server, enabling
elastic scaling.
Mastering HTTP Methods –
GET, POST, PUT, DELETE
Scenario: Now that your online store is handling traffic
well, you need to manage the store’s inventory,
handle user accounts, and process orders. Each
action requires a specific HTTP method to ensure
efficient communication.
Real-World Example:
GET for retrieving product details.
POST for placing an order.
PUT for updating user profile data.
DELETE for removing products from the cart.
Choosing the correct HTTP method is crucial for data
consistency. For example, a PUT request should
replace a resource, while a PATCH is used for partial
updates, ensuring no unintended data loss
Ensuring Fair Use –
Preventing API Overload
Scenario: As your platform grows, some users start
sending too many requests, potentially overloading
your servers. To manage this, you implement rate
limiting on your APIs, ensuring fair access for all users.
Example:
Using Token Bucket or Leaky Bucket algorithms,
you ensure that users can only make a set number
of requests per minute. This prevents abuse and
ensures system stability.
Rate limiting is crucial for protecting your APIs from
DDoS attacks and ensuring that no single user or
service consumes excessive resources, ensuring a fair
distribution of server resources.
Building for the Future –
Why API Versioning
Matters
Scenario: Your platform evolves over time with new
features and improvements. You introduce a new
version of your API to support additional payment
methods. Versioning allows your API to grow without
breaking existing functionality.
Example:
You launch version /v1/products for the initial
version and /v2/products for a new feature that
allows filtering by price range.
Versioning is essential for backward compatibility. It
ensures that existing clients won’t break when new
changes are introduced to the API
Securing Your API – Best
Practices for Robust
Security
Scenario: Security becomes paramount as your
platform starts handling sensitive user data, including
payment information. You implement OAuth 2.0 for
secure user authentication and JWT for stateless
authorization.
Real-World Example:
Your e-commerce site now supports Google login
(OAuth 2.0). After successful authentication, a JWT
is issued to the client, allowing them to make secure
requests without re-authenticating each time.
JWT provides a stateless approach to authentication,
allowing for scalability in microservices architecture,
while OAuth 2.0 ensures secure delegation of authority
without compromising user credentials.
Moving from Monolithic to
Microservices – RESTful
APIs in Action
Scenario: As your platform grows, you move from a
monolithic architecture to microservices. Each
microservice (payments, inventory, user accounts)
communicates with others through RESTful APIs,
enabling independent scaling and development.
Example:
The inventory system can be updated
independently from the order processing service. If
the inventory service has an issue, the order service
remains unaffected.
RESTful APIs provide a decentralized approach to
service communication, enabling faster development
cycles and improved fault isolation when transitioning
to microservices.
RESTful APIs – The
Foundation of Scalable,
Secure, and Efficient
Systems
From e-commerce stores to mobile apps and IoT
devices, RESTful APIs have proven their worth in building
scalable, secure, and efficient systems. Whether you're
handling millions of requests or introducing new
features, REST provides the flexibility and performance
required for modern web applications.
Ready to design your own robust RESTful
APIs? Let’s discuss best practices and
advanced tips!

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