This chapter has given us the chance to look at how one can leverage HTTP optimization methods to improve the performance of RESTful web services. In reducing round trips between clients and servers, as well as the amount of data sent across the wire, service designers can ensure request latencies are kept to a minimum. Other benefits of HTTP optimizations include lower operating expenses due to the reduction in bandwidth and lower power consumption for consumers of the service. This last point is quite important when consumers are mobile devices with a limited battery life.

Beyond HTTP-related optimizations, other techniques discussed in Chapter 10, Scaling a RESTful Web Service, can be employed to further manage web service performances. The next topic of importance when creating RESTful services is security. In the next chapter, we will take a look at how security can be handled with Spring.