REST (Representational State Transfer) is the dominant architectural style in web APIs for over a decade. It rests on four principles: resources identified by unique URLs (e.g. /customers/123), operations via HTTP verbs (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE), stateless (each request is independent — the server keeps no session), representations (typically JSON, possibly XML or other formats).
The success of REST comes from simplicity — any programmer who knows HTTP can consume a REST API in minutes. Unlike SOAP (which requires libraries, schemas, complex configuration), REST works with standard tools (curl, Postman, browser). OpenAPI documentation (formerly Swagger) describes the API interactively, with executable examples.
INFOS APIs follow REST standards with authentication via OAuth 2.0 or API keys, depending on the context. OpenAPI documentation is available for each product. For customers with complex integration — multiple systems, multiple operations — INFOS also delivers SDKs in popular languages (Java, .NET, Python) that encapsulate REST calls in native objects.