Harmonized Standard
CONCEPT
AI GOVERNANCE
A European standard that, once cited in the Official Journal, gives a presumption of conformity with the EU law it supports, including the AI Act.
CONCEPT
SYSTEMS ARCHITECTURE
REST API
A web API designed around the REST architectural style, exposing resources at URLs and manipulating them with standard HTTP methods.
BUSINESS RELEVANCE
Most SaaS platforms, from CRMs to ad platforms, expose REST APIs, so their quality decides how easily data can be synced, automated and reported without manual exports or fragile workarounds.
IMPLEMENTATION EXAMPLE
An integration calls GET /v3/contacts?updated_after=2026-10-01 on a CRM, pages through 2,000 results 100 at a time, then sends PATCH requests to update lead status, retrying after the Retry-After delay when it receives HTTP 429.
LIMITATIONS
Many APIs described as RESTful skip constraints such as hypermedia, and designs vary widely between vendors. Fetching related data can take many round trips, and each client must handle rate limits, pagination and versioning.
TECHNICAL EXPLANATION
Roy Fielding defined REST in 2000 as a set of constraints: client-server separation, stateless requests, cacheable responses, a uniform interface, layered systems and optional code on demand. In practice, resources are identified by URLs and manipulated with HTTP methods whose semantics, including safe and idempotent methods, are set by RFC 9110. Responses carry status codes and representations, typically JavaScript Object Notation (JSON), and REST APIs are often paired with a Webhook for event notifications.
Secondary Topics
Data Engineering, Intelligent Automation
Sources
Roy T. Fielding, UC Irvine — Architectural Styles and the Design of Network-based Software Architectures, Chapter 5: Representational State Transfer (REST) — https://ics.uci.edu/~fielding/pubs/dissertation/rest_arch_style.htm; MDN Web Docs — REST (Glossary) — https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Glossary/REST
Related terms
Composable Architecture
CONCEPT
SYSTEMS ARCHITECTURE
A modern software design paradigm assembling modular, decoupled business capabilities through independent APIs and microservices.
Data Exfiltration
CONCEPT
CYBERSECURITY
The unauthorized, illicit retrieval, copy, or transmission of sensitive enterprise information from a secure corporate environment.
Lifecycle Stage
CONCEPT
REVENUE OPERATIONS
A CRM classification defining an account or contact's current position within the buyer journey from lead to customer.
Application Programming Interface (API)
CONCEPT
SYSTEMS ARCHITECTURE
A defined software interface that lets applications or components request data or functionality from each other through documented operations.