CPN Model Based Standard Feature Verification Method for REST Service Architecture

Abstract

The representational state transfer (REST) service architecture is widely used in large-scale and scalable distributed web systems. If the REST service architecture does not comply with its standard feature constrains, it can result in degraded performance or low scalability of the REST-based web systems. Therefore, in order to enhance the quality of system designing, it is necessary to verify whether the system design meets the standard feature constrains of the REST service architecture. In this paper, we propose a standard feature constrains verification method for REST service architecture based on Colored Petri Nets (CPN) model. Firstly, five standard feature constrains of the REST service architecture are modeled using the CPN. Then a verification method is proposed based on synchronized matching of the execution paths in model state space. Lastly, we validate the usability and validity of the proposed verification method using a practical course management web system based on the REST service architecture. Experimental results show that our method can effectively confirm whether the web application system design based on REST service architecture conforms to the standard feature constrains of the REST service architecture. Besides, it can also provide intuitive and feasible execution data when the standard feature constraints are not met, which can facilitate the defects location and correction of the following design of application systems.