Best Practices for Designing SOAP APIs
You can use multiple ways to request data from the server. Some of the most common are REST and SOAP API. The web service called SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) provides a way for the client to communicate with the server. Any web service that complies with the SOAP web services specification is a SOAP web service. The W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) is behind these specifications.
If you are planning to implement a SOAP API, there are some best practices that you should adopt. Let’s take a look at some of them.
Use Asynchronous Processing
When designing a SOAP API, you should implement asynchronous processing whenever possible. It helps to ensure that you receive the best response to your API calls. It is because the client can release the transport-specific resources once the server acknowledges the request. When it completes the processing of the message, it sends a response back to the client over a new HTTP connection.
Plan Data Flow
Another best practice is planning and mapping the data flow of your API calls. It improves the effectiveness of your API interaction, and it also presents a clear image of how you can access different data through the SOAP API.
Implement Peak Handling Strategy
It is always an excellent practice to implement strategies to handle an unusual amount of traffic. It will ensure your product does not break if you have set some functionalities to deal with when your system capabilities reach their upper limit.
Queuing And Accounting Future Growth
While designing SOAP APIs, always account for future growth before developing your API solution. It can help you in the long run if you have to scale your API. Also, you should implement it to queue your API calls and pull off data from those calls at a defined rate.