web services: March 2006 Archives

Off the top of my head, here are ten ideas for applications one could build on top of Amazon S3:

1. virtual hard drive with web-based management UI


2. background automated backup application


3. historical index of items from favorite RSS feeds


4. photo storage vault


5. iTunes/mp3 library


6. generic virtual database with SQL interface


7. searchable email archive


8. Amazon product tracking database


9. automated web clippings database


10. clipart database

No doubt others have thought of many of the same ideas -- it'll be fun to see what folks do with this.

Amazon has introduced another new web service -- Amazon S3 (“Simple Storage Service”), which provides a web services interface to Internet-based storage and backup. This is very cool; it's easy to imagine a lot of great uses for this. Amazon provides the web service -- it's up to the rest of us to build the applications. I think a we'll see a lot of interesting applications for a variety of purposes (not just traditional backup). As usual, Amazon provides both SOAP and REST interfaces.

Using REST with Ajax, at ONLamp.com. Some examples using Python.

Mark O'Neill summarizes a talk he did at the recent RSA conference, on security for REST web services. He talks about "true" REST vs. how it is typically used:

... when people talk about a "REST style" Web Service, they usually mean a Web Service that presents a HTTP GET interface. This is very different from the original intent of REST, where GETs are only supposed to be used for fetching information, not for changing server state.

He then makes the point that security is easier to implement when only POSTs are using for changing server state.

The full set of slides from his talk (linked to from Mark's post) is worth a look.