Introduction to ASP.NET Web API

Developing software services, exposing them over a network and then consuming them in a variety of clients is not a new idea now. As far as .NET is concerned, Remoting, Web Services and WCF services allow us to develop a rich set of services. However, many modern internet based applications need to expose services over plain HTTP rather than making use of messaging formats such as SOAP. That is where ASP.NET Web API comes into the picture. Using ASP.NET Web API you can program for HTTP verbs such as GET, POST, PUT and DELETE. Once created, you can consume the Web API in a wide range of clients including web applications, desktop applications and mobile applications. This article is intended to give you a jump start in creating and consuming ASP.NET Web API. You will also learn to program CRUD operations that make use of Entity Framework and SQL Server over HTTP.