diff --git a/utils/rest/src/main/java/org/onlab/rest/BaseResource.java b/utils/rest/src/main/java/org/onlab/rest/BaseResource.java
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..78fa031
--- /dev/null
+++ b/utils/rest/src/main/java/org/onlab/rest/BaseResource.java
@@ -0,0 +1,36 @@
+package org.onlab.rest;
+
+import org.onlab.osgi.DefaultServiceDirectory;
+import org.onlab.osgi.ServiceDirectory;
+
+/**
+ * Base abstraction of a JAX-RS resource.
+ */
+public abstract class BaseResource {
+
+    private static ServiceDirectory services = new DefaultServiceDirectory();
+
+    /**
+     * Sets alternate service directory to be used for lookups.
+     * <p>
+     * Intended to ease unit testing and not intended for use in production.
+     * </p>
+     *
+     * @param serviceDirectory alternate service directory
+     */
+    public static void setServiceDirectory(ServiceDirectory serviceDirectory) {
+        services = serviceDirectory;
+    }
+
+    /**
+     * Returns reference to the specified service implementation.
+     *
+     * @param service service class
+     * @param <T>     type of service
+     * @return service implementation
+     */
+    protected static <T> T get(Class<T> service) {
+        return services.get(service);
+    }
+
+}
diff --git a/utils/rest/src/main/javadoc/org/onlab/rest/package.html b/utils/rest/src/main/javadoc/org/onlab/rest/package.html
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..09b098f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/utils/rest/src/main/javadoc/org/onlab/rest/package.html
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+<body>
+Facilities for building JAX-RS web resources.
+</body>
\ No newline at end of file