Overview of the Web Interface REST service (Web Interface REST Service)

Web Interface includes a REST service that exposes data in a model.

If you want to develop your own applications that can work with data from a Modeler model, you can use the REST service that is provided with a Web Interface website to extract that data you require.

When you make a REST service request, the REST service returns XML that includes URIs for making further requests. For example, if you make a servers request, the returned XML includes a URI for each server that can be accessed through the REST service.

To set up a REST service you set up a Web Interface website.

After setting up a Web Interface website, you can use the REST service that is provided by that Web Interface website.

For information about setting up a Web Interface website, see Overview of Web Interface (Web Interface).

When you have obtained the URL for a Web Interface website, you can use that URL suffixed by /ModelerService to connect to the REST service. For example:

Depending on how the Web Interface website has been set up, you may have to create a Web Interface website account to log in to the REST service for a Web Interface website.

A Web Interface website can be set up to authenticate users using LDAP authentication only, Web Interface website account authentication only, or both LDAP authentication and Web Interface website account authentication.

When you log in for LDAP authentication, the user name must include its domain. For example, MyDomain\MyUserName.

For more information about Web Interface website accounts, and whether you need to create one to use the REST service of a Web Interface website, see Web Interface website accounts and user authentication (Web Interface)

Learning about the REST service requests and their returned XML or JSON

When you are learning to use the REST service, you can log in to the Web Interface website using the Log In page, and then use the web browser session to access the REST service:

• You can make requests to the REST service through the address bar of the web browser.

• You can view the returned XML or JSON in the web browser.

• You can copy the URIs in the returned XML or JSON to the address bar of the web browser.

The default response from the REST service is XML. To change the response from the REST service to JSON, set the HTTP Header ACCEPT=”application/json”

To see a worked example that uses a web browser to navigate from the REST Service to a model item, see Worked example: Using returned URIs to navigate to resources (Web Interface REST service)

For information about the analyzing the tags that appear in returned XML, see Analyzing returned XML from the REST service (Web Interface REST service).

There are two types of requests you can make to a Web Interface REST service:

• An Operation request returns URIs for resources.

For example, if you run the Repositories operation request against a server resource, the REST service returns URIs for the databases that can be accessed from that server.

• A Resource request returns URIs for operations that can be run against that resource.

For example, if you run the resource request for a database, the REST service returns URIs for the operation requests that can be used against that database.

For more information about requests you can make, Overview of REST service requests (Web Interface REST service).

For an application to use the REST service, it must request an access token from the REST service using a valid user name and password. The application must then use that access token with each request it makes to the REST service.

For information about requesting and using access tokens from an application, see Requesting and using access tokens (Web Interface REST Service).