1. Developing SOA Applications with Oracle SOA Suite
  2. Using Binding Components
  3. Integrating REST Operations in SOA Composite Applications
  4. Introduction to REST Support

Introduction to REST Support

REST is an architecture for designing network applications. RESTful applications use HTTP requests to post data (create and update), get data (for example, make queries), update data, and delete data. REST provides an alternative to using web services.

Starting in 12.2.1, your SOA composites can use end-to-end JSON. This means that the REST service can receive the REST request and route it to the BPEL engine without translating it to XML. The BPEL component can use the JavaScript action, and also use JavaScript in conditional and iterative constructs, to work on JSON objects directly. The REST reference can receive the REST message from the BPEL engine and route it to an external REST endpoint without translation.

Note:

The REST interfaces and BPEL component support end-to-end JSON. However, if you are using other service components, like the Mediator, you need to use the 12.1.3–style composite that internally maps REST resources and verbs to WSDL operations and XML schemas, and translates the incoming payload into XML.

Oracle SOA Suite provides the following REST support:

  • Support in SOA composite applications:

    • Enable End-to-End JSON

    • Enable REST support in new or existing services.

    • Integrate with external REST APIs.

    • Orchestrate a set of RESTful state transitions (RPC/Hypermedia as the Engine of Application State (HATEOAS) approach).

    • Support for XML, JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) (with automatic translation to and from XML), text, opaque (binary), and URL-encoded payload data.

    • Generation of sample URI for REST service operations.

    • Support for WADL services. The WADL can be provided by a deployed Oracle SOA Suite or Oracle Service Bus service or a non-Oracle SOA Suite or Oracle Service Bus service such as a Jersey REST service.

  • Ease of development:

    • Oracle JDeveloper wizard provides several options for modeling REST interfaces and WSDL operation bindings:

      • Manually define resource paths and REST operations to generate an underlying WSDL that contains the mapping from the REST definition to the WSDL.

      • Select the WSDL of the service component or external reference from which to map WSDL operations to resource paths and HTTP verbs.

      • Select a WSDL from many sources (for example, the application server or SOA-MDS) from which to automatically populate the REST adapter with operation mappings.

    • Readable API that publishes each method used upon deployment.

    • Ability to browse and consume Oracle REST endpoints (including Oracle Service Bus) from within Oracle JDeveloper.

  • Oracle Web Service Manager (OWSM) policy support for REST security.

  • Support for the following use cases:

    • Get a list of customers

    • Create a new customer

    • Get customer details

    • Update customer details

    • Delete a customer

    • Create a new address for a customer

    • Get an address of a customer

    • Update the address of a customer