diff --git a/packages/apollo-datasource-rest/package.json b/packages/apollo-datasource-rest/package.json
index 1e8aa687..e4429c45 100644
--- a/packages/apollo-datasource-rest/package.json
+++ b/packages/apollo-datasource-rest/package.json
@@ -23,6 +23,7 @@
     "node": ">=6"
   },
   "dependencies": {
+    "apollo-datasource": "^2.0.0-rc.7",
     "apollo-server-caching": "^2.0.0-rc.7",
     "apollo-server-env": "^2.0.0-rc.7",
     "apollo-server-errors": "^2.0.0-rc.7",
diff --git a/packages/apollo-datasource-rest/src/RESTDataSource.ts b/packages/apollo-datasource-rest/src/RESTDataSource.ts
index 25881b36..d6d1be6d 100644
--- a/packages/apollo-datasource-rest/src/RESTDataSource.ts
+++ b/packages/apollo-datasource-rest/src/RESTDataSource.ts
@@ -9,6 +9,9 @@ import {
   URLSearchParamsInit,
 } from 'apollo-server-env';
 
+import { DataSource } from 'apollo-datasource';
+
+import { KeyValueCache } from 'apollo-server-caching';
 import { HTTPCache } from './HTTPCache';
 
 import {
@@ -29,10 +32,15 @@ export { Request };
 
 type ValueOrPromise<T> = T | Promise<T>;
 
-export abstract class RESTDataSource<TContext = any> {
+export abstract class RESTDataSource<TContext = any> extends DataSource {
   httpCache!: HTTPCache;
   context!: TContext;
 
+  initialize(context: TContext, cache: KeyValueCache): void {
+    this.context = context;
+    this.httpCache = new HTTPCache(cache);
+  }
+
   baseURL?: string;
 
   protected willSendRequest?(request: RequestOptions): ValueOrPromise<void>;
diff --git a/packages/apollo-datasource/.npmignore b/packages/apollo-datasource/.npmignore
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..a165046d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/packages/apollo-datasource/.npmignore
@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@
+*
+!src/**/*
+!dist/**/*
+dist/**/*.test.*
+!package.json
+!README.md
diff --git a/packages/apollo-datasource/package.json b/packages/apollo-datasource/package.json
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..475d13c8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/packages/apollo-datasource/package.json
@@ -0,0 +1,57 @@
+{
+  "name": "apollo-datasource",
+  "version": "2.0.0-rc.7",
+  "author": "opensource@apollographql.com",
+  "license": "MIT",
+  "repository": {
+    "type": "git",
+    "url": "https://github.com/apollographql/apollo-server/tree/master/packages/apollo-datasource"
+  },
+  "homepage": "https://github.com/apollographql/apollo-server#readme",
+  "bugs": {
+    "url": "https://github.com/apollographql/apollo-server/issues"
+  },
+  "scripts": {
+    "clean": "rm -rf dist",
+    "compile": "tsc",
+    "prepublish": "npm run clean && npm run compile",
+    "test": "jest --verbose"
+  },
+  "main": "dist/index.js",
+  "types": "dist/index.d.ts",
+  "engines": {
+    "node": ">=6"
+  },
+  "dependencies": {
+    "apollo-server-caching": "^2.0.0-rc.7",
+    "apollo-server-env": "^2.0.0-rc.7"
+  },
+  "devDependencies": {
+    "@types/jest": "^23.1.2",
+    "jest": "^23.2.0",
+    "ts-jest": "^22.4.6"
+  },
+  "jest": {
+    "testEnvironment": "node",
+    "setupFiles": [
+      "<rootDir>/node_modules/apollo-server-env/dist/index.js"
+    ],
+    "transform": {
+      "^.+\\.(ts|js)$": "ts-jest"
+    },
+    "moduleFileExtensions": [
+      "ts",
+      "js",
+      "json"
+    ],
+    "testRegex": "apollo-datasource-rest/src/__tests__/.*$",
+    "roots": [
+      "../../"
+    ],
+    "globals": {
+      "ts-jest": {
+        "skipBabel": true
+      }
+    }
+  }
+}
diff --git a/packages/apollo-datasource/src/index.ts b/packages/apollo-datasource/src/index.ts
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..a98ddd4d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/packages/apollo-datasource/src/index.ts
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+import { KeyValueCache } from 'apollo-server-caching';
+
+export abstract class DataSource<TContext = any> {
+  abstract initialize(context: TContext, cache: KeyValueCache): void;
+}
diff --git a/packages/apollo-datasource/tsconfig.json b/packages/apollo-datasource/tsconfig.json
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..700fb9c5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/packages/apollo-datasource/tsconfig.json
@@ -0,0 +1,17 @@
+{
+  "extends": "../../tsconfig",
+  "compilerOptions": {
+    "rootDir": "./src",
+    "outDir": "./dist",
+    "removeComments": true,
+    "strict": true,
+    "noImplicitAny": true,
+    "noImplicitReturns": true,
+    "noFallthroughCasesInSwitch": true,
+    "noUnusedParameters": true,
+    "noUnusedLocals": true,
+    "types": ["node", "jest"]
+  },
+  "include": ["src/**/*"],
+  "exclude": ["node_modules", "**/__tests__/*", "**/__mocks__/*"]
+}
diff --git a/packages/apollo-server-core/package.json b/packages/apollo-server-core/package.json
index 4b5204e5..edf9fdad 100644
--- a/packages/apollo-server-core/package.json
+++ b/packages/apollo-server-core/package.json
@@ -30,7 +30,7 @@
   "dependencies": {
     "@types/ws": "^5.1.2",
     "apollo-cache-control": "^0.2.0-rc.0",
-    "apollo-datasource-rest": "^2.0.0-rc.7",
+    "apollo-datasource": "^2.0.0-rc.7",
     "apollo-engine-reporting": "^0.0.0-rc.1",
     "apollo-server-caching": "^2.0.0-rc.7",
     "apollo-server-env": "^2.0.0-rc.7",
diff --git a/packages/apollo-server-core/src/graphqlOptions.ts b/packages/apollo-server-core/src/graphqlOptions.ts
index d547cd66..c63f0d80 100644
--- a/packages/apollo-server-core/src/graphqlOptions.ts
+++ b/packages/apollo-server-core/src/graphqlOptions.ts
@@ -7,6 +7,7 @@ import { HttpHeaderCalculation } from './caching';
 import { GraphQLExtension } from 'graphql-extensions';
 import { CacheControlExtensionOptions } from 'apollo-cache-control';
 import { KeyValueCache } from 'apollo-server-caching';
+import { DataSource } from 'apollo-datasource';
 
 /*
  * GraphQLServerOptions
@@ -50,10 +51,6 @@ export interface GraphQLServerOptions<
   persistedQueries?: PersistedQueryOptions;
 }
 
-export interface DataSource<TContext> {
-  context: TContext;
-}
-
 export type DataSources<TContext> = {
   [name: string]: DataSource<TContext>;
 };
diff --git a/packages/apollo-server-core/src/runHttpQuery.ts b/packages/apollo-server-core/src/runHttpQuery.ts
index 6c3993c6..c420bb3a 100644
--- a/packages/apollo-server-core/src/runHttpQuery.ts
+++ b/packages/apollo-server-core/src/runHttpQuery.ts
@@ -1,7 +1,6 @@
 import { ExecutionResult } from 'graphql';
 const sha256 = require('hash.js/lib/hash/sha/256');
 
-import { HTTPCache } from 'apollo-datasource-rest';
 import { CacheControlExtensionOptions } from 'apollo-cache-control';
 
 import { omit } from 'lodash';
@@ -338,12 +337,8 @@ export async function runHttpQuery(
       if (optionsObject.dataSources) {
         const dataSources = optionsObject.dataSources() || {};
 
-        // we use the cache provided to the request and add the Http semantics on top
-        const httpCache = new HTTPCache(optionsObject.cache);
-
         for (const dataSource of Object.values(dataSources)) {
-          dataSource.context = context;
-          (dataSource as any).httpCache = httpCache;
+          dataSource.initialize(context, optionsObject.cache!);
         }
 
         if ('dataSources' in context) {