> REST for the control plane works because there are few enough "resources" that you can have a URI for each and CRUD works. Isn't the issue also that entities

> REST for the control plane works because there are few enough "resources" that you can have a URI for each and CRUD works. Isn't the issue also that entities on the control plane often have relatively simple state machines? You can reduce REST complexity by designing APIs that manipulate the state machine rather than thinking in terms of a pure CRUD model. For instance, the need to hold client-side state disappears in transaction models where you request a desired state and then have the option to wait for the actual state to correspond or just go away and check later to see how it's doing. The poll request (if there is one) translates from looking for transaction completion to waiting for the desired state. Edit: for clarity