PSIA adopts architecture standard REST
By L. Samuel Pfeifle
Updated Thu February 12, 2009
SANTA CLARA, Calif.--The Physical Security Interoperability Alliance, a group that includes a number of large security manufacturers and integrators, announced this week the adoption of REST (Representational State Transfer) as the architecture to support interoperability among physical security products.
The term REST was first proposed by Roy Fielding, one of the principal authors of the HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) specification, in a 2000 doctoral dissertation. It is a style of software architecture for distributed hypermedia systems such as the World Wide Web and it refers to a set of principles that outline the way resources are defined and addressed. Essentially, REST-based software allows the transmission of data over HTTP without any additional messaging layers.
According to the PSIA statement, "REST provides more simple and efficient implementation in not only IP video cameras but the full range of security products. REST is functionally rich and less expensive to execute and deploy than other architectures. Establishing REST for PSIA specifications will ensure interoperability regardless of the type of device or manufacturer, and will speed the timeline from implementation to deployment."
"From an embedded computing environment, using REST makes the most sense," said Ian Johnston, CTO of IQinVision, in a statement. "It is a very lightweight, robust, and scalable solution that doesn't rely on unnecessary messaging layers to get the job done."
The PSIA expects product implementations relying on REST, the PSIA service model, and the IP Media Device API v1.0 spec to be demonstrated in the second quarter of 2009.
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