API Integration

Do you want to pull in weather data for your users? Get them the latest sports scores for your app? Want to make a site that tells your user a random joke?

You could go about writing all those jokes yourself or copying and pasting them into a file for your site to read from. Or you could just start using API integration and give your code superpowers to automate the whole process.

This powerful technology enables interaction between systems, applications, mobile devices, and apps. But what is API integration, exactly?

What is an API?

An API is a collection of protocols, definitions, and tools that permit the interaction and communication between software components. It allows a user to communicate with a web-based web tool or application. With an API, clients can use an interface to request something from an app. Then, the application will pass the data to an API, which will interpret the information and provide a response. An API converts the returned data into something that the user can understand.

What is API integration?

API integration is the connection between two or more applications via their APIs (application programming interfaces) that allow systems to exchange data sources. API integrations power processes throughout many sectors and layers of an organization to keep data in sync, enhance productivity and drive revenue.

Today, APIs are a necessity of modern enterprise IT. It is less a matter of if APIs are needed, but rather how many are necessary and how they will be created and published.

Why use API integrations?

API connectivity helps applications share data and communicate with each other without human interruption. You enable communication between two web tools or applications through their APIs. It allows organisations to automate systems, enhance the seamless sharing of data, and integrate current applications.

Enterprises cannot overlook the importance of API integration in the modern world. After the explosion of cloud-based products and apps, organisations must create a connected system where data is relayed automatically between various software tools. API integration makes that possible as it allows sharing process and enterprise data among applications in a given ecosystem.

It unlocks a new level of flexibility of information and service delivery. It also makes the embedding of content from different sites and apps easy. An API acts as the interface that permits the integration of two applications.

How to achieve API integration in your organization

Custom Integrations

This kind of integration involves the use of manually-written script from a software developer with expertise in the APIs you want to integrate. Although this technique was famous some years back, its popularity has plummeted due to the emergence of other more straightforward integration methods.

Connector Applications

Connector applications are designed to facilitate the data transfer between two well-known software platforms. Connectors are affordable, make it quicker to deploy standard API solutions and make integrations easier to manage and maintain. They also reduce the need for API management.

API Integration Management Platforms

Usually SaaS applications, these platforms are dedicated to the development of API integrations that help join other SaaS applications and systems.

Unlike when you needed an expert developer to write you a script from scratch to help integrate your applications, today, you can build custom integration apps using robust tools that are available in the market.

Of the three, API integration platforms appear to be the most popular.

Reasons why businesses use API integration platforms:

It lets you connect cloud apps more easily

Hundreds, if not thousands, of cloud apps exist today. This technology has firmly permeated the enterprise. When it comes to connecting cloud apps, API integrations are now the standard. Most legacy integration technology, like enterprise service buses (ESBs) were designed in the on-premise era, and struggle to support modern API-connectivity beyond the firewall. The gravity of apps has shifted to the cloud, and it no longer makes sense to house the platform that connects all these clouds behind your firewall. Simply put, an API Integration platform born in the cloud is necessary to connect today’s modern cloud APIs.

It lets you connect best-of-breed solutions

Think about the typical finance department at your average enterprise. Consider all the tasks that fall on these teams. Everything from accounts payable, billing, taxes, insurance payouts and more is under their purview. While there are some tools out there that claim to do everything an average finance department would need, that solution is likely both expensive and not very good at all of these tasks.

Instead, many departments are building their own solutions, assembling their own platforms, by pulling together best-of-breed solutions that handle specific tasks and data sets. With an API integration platform, departments are able to easily connect the best apps and tools available. This way, they can replace all-encompassing, yet inadequate options with a sleek and highly effective stack.

It lets you create new APIs more quickly and easily

Until recently, if you needed an API, you had two main options. You either used what was already available (i.e., what a SaaS vendor or another third party already made) or you built one from scratch. Both scenarios could be problematic. Assuming an API is available from an outside source, it could be limited in its functionality or use. Building one from scratch via code is far from ideal either, as that is typically a time-consuming and difficult task.

By definition, API integrations done via an Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) platform can offer an easier option. With just the click of a few buttons, you can create an API from an existing integration, saving you time and money while also finally fully leveraging your existing technology investments.

It lets you continue using legacy data sources

At many companies, especially older ones, data that is more than a year or even a few months old just ends up on a database somewhere. It’s “collecting dust,” remaining relatively dormant. Part of the reason older data often remains underutilized is because it can be difficult to access and subsequently integrated into current systems.

API Integration Platform simplifying the communication and connectivity between disparate devices, systems and apps.

API integration tools or platforms can be hugely beneficial in this situation as well. With such a solution, an enterprise can create its own APIs just for internal uses. This enables a business to more easily extract data from older servers and databases as well as reuse business logic and workflows that are already working.

It lets you create new applications more easily

Many popular apps at their core consist of previously existing technology that is tied together in a unique fashion using APIs. Photo filters and social media technology existed before Instagram, but they were able to package them together in a different way using APIs.

New apps can be composed in the exact same way. Through the use of an API integration platform, teams can quickly and simply connect disparate technology or expose existing integrations as APIs or microservices to bring new apps to market.

It lets you be more strategic

At organizations where API creation is a manual exercise, they then have to employ a team of developers and other IT staff to get everything up and running. Similarly, enterprise departments that lack concrete, integrated stacks often hire staff members specifically to handle one or two apps.

With an API integration platform in place, not only can that team of developers focus their efforts elsewhere on strategic projects (say, composing new revenue-generating apps, for instance), but often fewer people are needed to keep every department productive.

It helps you become more productive

For developers, coders and other members of the IT department, automating connectivity between applications and data sources via API integrations serve as a huge boon to productivity. The hours every month that would previously be spent creating, managing, overseeing and fixing APIs can instead be devoted to other pursuits.

API integration platforms provide similar benefits to other enterprise departments too. Not only does this technology enable stacks to become a reality, but such platforms often allow even non-technical teams to create and manage their own APIs if desired.

It makes managing multiple APIs much easier

By using more manual API creation methods, even if the API itself was created by a third party, oversight and maintenance of that API still falls on developers or other IT staff members in the enterprise. As API use skyrockets, keeping tabs on all the APIs in place can be an exhausting and time-consuming effort.

API integration platforms, however, can significantly reduce this administrative burden. By serving as a single pane of glass for all deployed and created APIs, API integration tools simplify management, security and overview processes.

It offers companies support for maximizing the power of APIs

Whether self-created or third-party APIs are in use, businesses typically have no one to turn to for help. APIs made by outside parties might offer user guides and documentation, but good luck getting in touch with the likes of Google or Amazon for any specific queries.

API integration platform providers often have in-house experts that can be called upon if necessary. This level of support can go a long way toward ensuring that a business is getting the most out of all of its APIs and other IT investments.

It future-proofs your organization’s integrations

Technology has progressed at a rapid clip over the past decade, and this growth shows no signs of slowing down. Machine learning, wearables and the Internet of Things (IoT) are just some of the tech trends poised to dramatically change the enterprise IT landscape in the future.

With an API integration platform in place, organizations can be sure they have the capabilities to effectively integrate these new technologies as they grow and mature.