Recommended way to create Public API for ASP.net website that uses Entity Framework

Question

I currently have a webforms asp.net using entity framework to do all the CRUD operations.

I need to create a public facing API for my website.

I need the following from an API:

• Authentication of clients consuming the API
• Usage Logging, to make sure there is no abuse etc
• Throttling as an added extra to make sure one person doesn't overload the API.
• Preferably the return data should be able to return in either JSON or XML, based on a flag the calling client uses.

I am looking for any guidance as the the most efficient way to create a public API to cater for these requirements. Suggested Books, Links, suggestions are all and any thing else are welcome.

Answer 1

Use WebAPI:

ASP.NET Web API is a framework that makes it easy to build HTTP services that reach a broad range of clients, including browsers and mobile devices. ASP.NET Web API is an ideal platform for building RESTful applications on the .NET Framework.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/henrikn/archive/2012/02/23/using-asp-net-web-api-with-asp-net-web-forms.aspx http://www.asp.net/web-api/overview/hosting-aspnet-web-api/using-web-api-with-aspnet-web-forms http://www.beletsky.net/2011/10/integrating-aspnet-mvc-into-legacy-web.html

Answer 2

Doing this in code is definitely do-able, but it's fairly involved for all those functions. An easier way is to use something like 3scale (http://www.3scale.net) which does all of this out of the box (you can issue API keys, rate limit them, get analytics for the API + create a developer portal). Setup is via a code library you drop into your system in general (libraries are here: (https://support.3scale.net/libraries) or there's an API or lastly set up Varnish as an API proxy in front of your application using this mod: https://github.com/3scale/libvmod-3scale/.

For the data return type, typically you would switch this by having .json, .xml in the API requests and handle this as a content type within the code.