What is Web API ?

HTTP is simple way to connect broad range of clients, including browser, mobile & desktop application. To achieve above broad range a new framework is introduce on top of .NET framework which is called ASP.NET web API.

With ASP.NET Web API you can call simple RESTFul service. You can perform various GET, PUT, POST, DELETE operation using Web API.

Web API is enable to service data request from client in both (JASON /XML) format according to client need.

Web API introduced with ASP.NET MVC framework in later stage. If you are familiar with MVC application then you will think it is same.

For example you want to get list of all the customers then a URL may be like below

http://mycustomerwebapi.com/Customers

Now suppose you want specific customer with customerId = 1 then you may need to write following URL in browser

http://mycustomerwebapi.com/customer/1

So above URL shows you can easily call the Web API services

You can easily host web API in IIS same as you host a web site.

I hope now we have a basic understanding of Web API.

In next topic we will discuss How to implement Web API.

Thanks & Best Regards,

Rajat Jaiswal