Representational State Transfer (REST) Web Services are an alternative approach to SOAP for getting information content from a Web site. Similar to RSS it involves reading a designated Web page that contains an XML (Extensible Markup Language) file that describes and includes the desired content. With REST each unique URL is a representation of some object. It is utilized by a wide variety of popular websites and has been included in the latest version of SharePoint (SharePoint 2010).

In some cases traditional web services are the right way to go. In others REST is the most appropriate. Jetstream can help you decide the right technology for your business needs.