research-article

Interface Quality Patterns: Communicating and Improving the Quality of Microservices APIs

Authors:

Olaf Zimmermann,

Cesare PautassoAuthors Info & Claims

EuroPLoP '18: Proceedings of the 23rd European Conference on Pattern Languages of Programs

Article No.: 10, Pages 1 - 16

https://doi.org/10.1145/3282308.3282319

Published: 04 July 2018 Publication History

Abstract

The design and evolution of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) in microservices architectures is challenging. General design issues in integration and programming have been covered in great detail in many pattern languages since the beginnings of the patterns movement, and service-oriented infrastructure design patterns have also been published in the last decade. However, the interface representations (i.e., the content of message payloads) have received less attention. We presented five structural representation patterns in our previous work; in this paper we continue our coverage of the API design space and propose five interface quality patterns that deal with the observable aspects of quality-attribute-driven interface design for efficiency, security, and manageability: An API Key allows API providers to identify clients. Providers may offer rich data contracts in their responses, which not all consumers might need. A Wish List allows the client to request only the attributes in a response data set that it is interested in. If a client makes many API calls, the provider can employ a Rate Limit and bill clients according to a specified Rate Plan. A provider has to provide a high-quality service while at the same time having to use its available resources economically. The resulting compromise is expressed in a provider's Service Level Agreement.

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Cited By

Montesi FPeressotti MPicotti VZimmermann O(2025)A Conceptual Framework for API Refactoring in Service-Oriented ArchitecturesService-Oriented and Cloud Computing10.1007/978-3-031-84617-5_15(181-196)Online publication date: 21-Feb-2025
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-84617-5_15
Miranda Fdos Santos DVilela RAssunção Wdos Santos RPinto V(2024)A proposed catalog of development patterns for fault-tolerant microservicesProceedings of the XXIII Brazilian Symposium on Software Quality10.1145/3701625.3701678(406-416)Online publication date: 5-Nov-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3701625.3701678
Stocker MZimmermann OKapferer S(2024)Pattern-oriented API Refactoring: Addressing Design Smells and Stakeholder ConcernsProceedings of the 29th European Conference on Pattern Languages of Programs, People, and Practices10.1145/3698322.3698334(1-24)Online publication date: 3-Jul-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3698322.3698334
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Interface Quality Patterns: Communicating and Improving the Quality of Microservices APIs
1. Software and its engineering
  1. Software creation and management
    1. Designing software
  2. Software notations and tools
    1. General programming languages
      1. Language features
        Patterns

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cover image ACM Other conferences

EuroPLoP '18: Proceedings of the 23rd European Conference on Pattern Languages of Programs

July 2018

322 pages

ISBN:9781450363877

DOI:10.1145/3282308

Copyright © 2018 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

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Published: 04 July 2018

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EuroPLoP '18

EuroPLoP '18: 23rd European Conference on Pattern Languages of Programs

July 4 - 8, 2018

Irsee, Germany

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EuroPLoP '18 Paper Acceptance Rate 35 of 53 submissions, 66%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 216 of 354 submissions, 61%

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Cited By

Montesi FPeressotti MPicotti VZimmermann O(2025)A Conceptual Framework for API Refactoring in Service-Oriented ArchitecturesService-Oriented and Cloud Computing10.1007/978-3-031-84617-5_15(181-196)Online publication date: 21-Feb-2025
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-84617-5_15
Miranda Fdos Santos DVilela RAssunção Wdos Santos RPinto V(2024)A proposed catalog of development patterns for fault-tolerant microservicesProceedings of the XXIII Brazilian Symposium on Software Quality10.1145/3701625.3701678(406-416)Online publication date: 5-Nov-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3701625.3701678
Stocker MZimmermann OKapferer S(2024)Pattern-oriented API Refactoring: Addressing Design Smells and Stakeholder ConcernsProceedings of the 29th European Conference on Pattern Languages of Programs, People, and Practices10.1145/3698322.3698334(1-24)Online publication date: 3-Jul-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3698322.3698334
Commey DMai BHounsinou SCrosby G(2024)Securing Blockchain-Based IoT Systems: A ReviewIEEE Access10.1109/ACCESS.2024.342849012(98856-98881)Online publication date: 2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2024.3428490
Cruz-Filipe LKostopoulou SMontesi FVistrup J(2024)XL: explainable lead generation with microservices and hypothetical answersComputing10.1007/s00607-024-01321-x106:11(3419-3445)Online publication date: 24-Jul-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s00607-024-01321-x
Ben Mrad AO. Thiombiano AMkaouer MHnich B(2024)Assessing Large Language Models Effectiveness in Outdated Method RenamingService-Oriented Computing10.1007/978-981-96-0805-8_18(253-260)Online publication date: 7-Dec-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-96-0805-8_18
Venčkauskas AKukta DGrigaliūnas ŠBrūzgienė R(2023)Enhancing Microservices Security with Token-Based Access Control MethodSensors10.3390/s2306336323:6(3363)Online publication date: 22-Mar-2023
https://doi.org/10.3390/s23063363
Tapia VGaona C(2023)Research Opportunities in Microservices Quality Assessment: A Systematic Literature ReviewJournal of Advances in Information Technology10.12720/jait.14.5.991-100214:5(991-1002)Online publication date: 2023
https://doi.org/10.12720/jait.14.5.991-1002
Stocker MZimmermann O(2023)API Refactoring to Patterns: Catalog, Template and Tools for Remote Interface EvolutionProceedings of the 28th European Conference on Pattern Languages of Programs10.1145/3628034.3628073(1-32)Online publication date: 5-Jul-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3628034.3628073
Serbout SEl Malki APautasso CZdun U(2023)API Rate Limit Adoption -- A pattern collectionProceedings of the 28th European Conference on Pattern Languages of Programs10.1145/3628034.3628039(1-20)Online publication date: 5-Jul-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3628034.3628039
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