Resource oriented modelling: Describing restful Web Services using collaboration diagrams

The popularity of Resource Oriented and RESTful Web Services is increasing rapidly. In these, resources are key actors in the interfaces, in contrast to other approaches where services, messages or objects are. This distinctive feature necessitates a new approach for modelling RESTful interfaces providing a more intuitive mapping from model to implementation than could be achieved with non-resource methods. With this objective we propose an approach to describe Resource Oriented and RESTful Web Services based on UML collaboration diagrams. Then use it to model scenarios from several problem domains, arguing that Resource Oriented and RESTful Web Services can be used in systems which go beyond ad-hoc integration. Using the scenarios we demonstrate how the approach is useful for: eliciting domain ontologies; identifying recurring patterns; and capturing static and dynamic aspects of the interface.