Publication Date

5-2013

Advisor(s) - Committee Chair

David Erbach (Director), James Gary, Qi Li

Degree Program

Department of Computer Science

Degree Type

Master of Science

Abstract

Software as a service is an emerging but important aspect of the web. Web
Services play a vital role in providing it. Web Services are commonly provided in one of two architectural styles: a "REpresentational State Transfer" (REST), or using the "Simple Object Access Protocol" (SOAP.) Originally most web content was text and small images. But more recent services involve complex data structures including text, images, audio, and video. The task of optimizing data to provide delivery of these structures is a complex one, involving both theoretical and practical aspects. In this thesis work, I have considered two architectures developed in the REST architectural style and tested them on mixes of data types (plain text, image, audio) being retrieved from a file system or database. The payload which carries the actual content of a data transmission process can either be in Extensible Markup Language (XML) or JavaScript Object Notation (JSON). Both of these language notations are widely used. The two architectures used in this thesis work are titled as Scenario 1 and Scenario 2. Scenario 1 proposes two different cases for storing, retrieving and presenting the data via a REST web service. We investigate the question of what is the best way to provide different data types (image, audio) via REST Web Service. Payload size for JSON and XML are compared. Scenario 2 proposes an enhanced and optimized architecture which is derived from the pros of the first two cases in Scenario 1. The proposed architecture is best suited for retrieving and serving non-homogeneous data as a service in a homogenous environment. This thesis is composed of theoretical and practical parts. The theory part contains the design and principles of REST architecture. The practical part has a Web Service provider and consumer model developed in Java. The practical part is developed using the Spring MVC framework and Apache CXF, which provides an implementation using JAX-RS, the Java API for RESTful services. A glossary of acronyms used in this thesis appears in the appendix on page 101.

Disciplines

Computer Sciences | Programming Languages and Compilers | Software Engineering

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