Are hypermedia API's Just Hype?

Are

just

‘Hypermedia API’s’

Hype? Daniel Feist, MuleSoft Aaron Phethean, Temenos

Introductions

* All contents Copyright © 2013, MuleSoft Inc.

Daniel Feist, Principal Architect @dfeist

●  Founded 2006 by Ross Mason, to ‘Take the donkey work out of integration’.

●  Now the most widely used integration platform for connecting SaaS and enterprise applications in the cloud and on-premise

Introductions

* All contents Copyright © 2013, MuleSoft Inc.

Aaron Phethean Product Manager @aphethean

• Founded in 1993; listed on the Swiss Stock Exchange (SIX: TEMN) • Market leading provider of banking software systems to retail, corporate, universal, private, Islamic, microfinance and community banks, wealth managers, and financial institutions • Headquartered in Geneva and with more than 59 offices worldwide • 1,500 customer deployments in more than 140 countries across the world.

Objective view

Goals

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Avoid bigotry

Real world usage of Hypermedia

Levels of Hypermedia and advantages

Propose and review REST DSLs Tips & advice

New ideas

What is a Hypermedia API?

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Whats Hype?

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Whats Hype?

Hypermedia APIs - Innovation trigger?

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Hypermedia APIs – Enlightenment; productivity?

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Hypermedia API’s Inflated expectations?

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Hypermedia APIs - Trough of disillusionment?

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?

Where are Hypermedia APIs?

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• Prevent breakage • Enabling discoverability • Standardising API clients

So .. this all just Hype?

Is

just ‘The Web’

Hype?

HTML Links

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The Chasm

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L2 API’s

Hypermedia API’s

Why haven’t Hypermedia API’s taken off?

The User

The User..

The User..

The Contract

A Typical API Contract...

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Web Contract?

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●  Data ●  Hypermedia

Controls (links) ●  Presentation

Hypermedia Type for API’s

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No Standardized Hypermedia Type

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Hypermedia Type Style Version

HTML Enrich 4.0.1

HTML Microformats Enrich

XML Enrich 1.1

ATOM Wrap RFC

HAL Enrich Draft

Collection-JSON Wrap Draft

Custom Media-Types

Limited Standard Link Relations

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The Client

A Client

Who leads who?

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A User-Agent

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Hypermedia Maturity Levels

Hypermedia Maturity Levels

Glory of Hypermedia

Shared Vocabulary

Interaction Services

Data Services

Level 2

Level 2

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• Defines entities at URIs w/ flat or CRUD type services

• No links between resources

• Projects / examples -  Twitter -  Many others

Data Services

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•  Developers follow links before ultimately consuming a Data Service

•  API often still includes a version

•  Projects / examples -  OData -  PayPal API -  GitHub v3

Interaction Services

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•  User-Agent let’s user follow links

•  Available options and state are described through links

•  Projects / examples -  IRIS -  Restbucks

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Shared Vocabulary

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• Control navigation, state and presentation

• Use a well defined media type / shared vocabulary to control certain aspects of validation & rendering

• Projects / examples -  Restfulobjects, Apache ISIS -  Hydra, ALPS

Glory of Hypermedia

• Puts the user in total control

• Very well established; slowly changing media types

• Projects / examples -  HTML5 -  World Wide Web

Some Examples...

•  Pragmatic

-  ‘Practically ReSTful API’s’

•  Human & Machine Friendly •  Reusable Patterns

-  Resource Types -  Traits

•  Open

Why?

http://raml.org/

What?

Demo

1.  Design/Build your API

2.  Document/Explore your API

3.  Client/Server Contract for your API

Demo

Resource Interaction Model (RIM)

• Of Interaction Framework (Hypermedia Server)… - Reduce or eliminate client / server coupling - Put the user in control (Object, Action) - Reduce UI integration effort through mashup layer

Temenos Interaction Framework

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Temenos is donating a Java based Hypermedia Server to the Open Source Communityhttp://temenostech.temenos.com/

https://github.com/temenostech/IRIS

A project called IRIS; it has three main goals:

1.  To create web based services according to RESTful constraints

2.  Aggregate / mashup multiple resource managers into a single interaction service

3.  Provide a language to describe the interactions between these resources

Hypermedia Server

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• RIM language / example -  Conditional links -  Link relations -  Auto transitions -  Workflow

• HAL Browser

Resource Interaction Model (RIM)

RIM Demo

Summary

•  Who do you want to be in control? •  Human end user? •  More adaptive client.

•  MediaType Selection •  Hypermedia controls •  Enrich with links vs. wrap

•  There is value in just using links. -  Whatever maturity level you use.

Summary

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Thank You!