Internet providers often market their open interfaces as RESTful, but is this true of the APIs, especially when no standard exists? We introduce some REST providers and look at how closely their API architectures reflect the REST principle.

With the recent rise in cloud computing, most cloud providers have offered their own APIs, which means cloud users sign up for the services of individual providers at the expense of being able to migrate easily to other providers at a later stage. Apache Deltacloud addresses this issue by offering a standardized API definition for infrastructure as a service (IaaS) clouds with drivers for a range of different clouds.