Mobile First – Cloud First Simplified (1 of 3)
The device and service situation
Over the last decade, the tech industry has seen the exponential growth of a variety of devices (laptops, mobile phones, tablets, gaming consoles sensitive to touch/voice/motion/gestures). This is only going to get more diversified, whether we talk about 10 new devices within the 5.75 inch and 6.85 inches sector or the consoles / wrist bands that will replace medical equipment or watches that will talk to phones, glasses and TVs. Yes, the forecast is intense.
Relax, take some REST.
Given we can only partially foresee which future devices will be available, how do we maintain consistent delivery of business functionality to the devices that are still to be developed? Well, build a service that can communicate with all the existing devices and can also take care of the REST.
For decades we were happy with XML and SOAP messages communicating across applications. But now this communication has grown beyond traditional applications and devices. From some remote server hosted somewhere in the cloud to smart touchscreens, from set-top boxes to gaming consoles, some of those devices understand SOAP but many do not. However all of them positively understand HTTP. HTTP is what connects everything to the “Cloud” and staying away from either might not be a good idea.
Although the term “cloud” is heavily misused for sales purposes, I will come back to it a little later, let’s first talk about…
What is Service First?
So once you have identified that your business functionality will be delivered via HTTP, you should build your logic and let it be consumed via the HTTP service. HTTP service is more commonly known as RESTful service or REST service Web APIs. This is an architectural pattern that embraces HTTP as transportation protocol. So RESTful services are basically services built to be consumed over the web via HTTP.
Once we have functionality ready and available to be consumed across the spectrum, we can go ahead and create client apps for as many platforms and devices as we want. As far as maintenance is concerned, any change in the business logic will be one change to your service, and a consistent UX will represent the brand.