REST-based Web services are implemented using HTTP. They offer a light-weight alternative to the original SOAP and WSDL-based Web services.
REST works with resources that are identified with a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI). A resource represents a static or dynamically‑generated Web page. REST resources are named with nouns as part of the URI rather than verbs; for example, /customers rather than /getCustomers.
To use REST services, a client sends an HTTP request using the GET, POST, PUT, or DELETE verb.
The traditional HTTP error messages (for example, 200 ‑ OK and 404 ‑ Not found) can be used to indicate whether a request is successful. If a request is successful, information can be returned in Extensible Markup Language (XML) or JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) format.
Session handling is not performed, so there is no timeout of connections. Additionally, information is not retained between requests from a client. If that is required, it must be provided by the application developer.