API isn’t a new word to anyone who has glanced through the ABCs of software development at some point or has an idea somehow, however, the idea is often not a complete one. So before jumping right into the tech talk, let’s understand the concept of API development with a familiar situation. Suppose you want to grab a burger on the way to the office and you know that the McDonalds production team is making them at the restaurant kitchen. So what do you do to place the order – drive right into the kitchen? Obviously not, you reach up to the customer service person at the reception & place the order, who then communicates the order with the kitchen. Now think of..
- 1.1. ‘You’ as the people requiring access to the system containing the product or service
- 1.2. ‘Kitchen team’ as the system
- 1.3. The ‘customer service person’ as the API
I bet no one made it easier for you!
Let’s make the rest of the guide a cakewalk too..here you go!
What is API development & How Does API Work?
Basically, an API ( application programming interface ) is a documented interface acting as a messenger for centrally sharing data and functionalities related to a digital solution with the concerned people which may be among departments, partnering companies, external development partners or similar. The best part is, developers don’t need complete API implementation knowledge to access the contents – as simply through the interface they can communicate with the associated products and services.
Types Of API
Every application is unique and so are the types of API groups that can connect to such diverse applications seamlessly. So to ease your journey of API development, here’s a quick look at the different types of API.
API Types and Use-cases:
- Public API
Public API
As evident from the name itself, the public API (also called Open API) is open to be accessed by any external developer or concerned entity.
Is Ideal For
Companies whose workflow includes a decent need to share the applications and related data with a large number of other businesses / system
Characteristics Of Public API
- Relatively low authentication and authorization requirement and relatively fully automated.
- There’s not many restrictions owing to the ‘open’ concept and so external parties are able to leverage its content faster
- Partner API
Partner API
Partner APIs are more closely guarded than public API in terms of access control, as it shares data externally, but exclusively with the businesses in some sort of partnership with the API-provider.
Is Ideal For
Businesses that need to share customer data with partnering companies bypassing CRM access
Characteristics Of Partner API
- The concerned enterprises own clear licensed rights for API access
- The authorized user can choose the approach for accessing API integration services deciding how those resources are used
- Internal API
Internal API
Quite literally, internal API refers to one built for inhouse requirements.
Is Ideal For
Inter-departmental or inter-application or intra-application usage within a specific organization.
Characteristics Of Internal API
- Least (and sometime even zero) authentication and authorization requirement
- Under single administrative control
- Composite API
Composite API
Multiple API calls are combined together in a sequence and sent to the server as a single API request and a single API response is received – that’s composite API in simple words.
Is Ideal For
Businesses dealing with multiple applications or sources of info, or looking to automate a set of requests and responses.
Characteristics Of Composite API
- Promotes better performance as clients need to handle less number of responses compared to above discussed types of APIs
Why is API Development Important?
Often our clients have asked us, “What is that ‘significant’ benefit I’ll miss out on, if I do not get into API development?” My answer to them was, “Same as what you’ll miss out on, if you decide to reach a distant destination all by walking instead of driving a car.”
The difference is only in context but the bottom-line is, you lose time & time is money! Here’s a list of reasons why custom API development should be among your business’ highest priorities:
Expands scope of innovation across all aspects of a business
With the convenience to share the assets without compromising on the security factor, higher the chance to innovate. Thus the benefits of API development are a win-win for your company, as it enables you to sharpen up your competitive edge with multiple team’s ideas going into it while keeping doors open for further innovation.
The futuristic approach assures convenience
Previously there used to be heavy reliance on manual workforces, documenting files and many such time-draining and higher-cost ways for business process management. But the emerging API functionalities effectively transform such traditional ways in a more sustainable way, primarily concentrating on three aspects – reducing day-to-day business operation costs, speeding up the processes ensuring higher accuracy & productivity, and complete security.
For example : API makes online payment easier than ever helping in seamless payment gateway integration
Extend customer reach with higher value proposition
The previous two points were highlighting the significance for the business implementing the API but what is it like for the users?
Users can interact with the application info more seamlessly than ever – all thanks to APIs making way for personalization. Choosing to share the data and services through APIs basically gives its users the liberty to control their experiences as per their needs and thus, expanding possibilities.
Top Features To Develop The Best Working API
API development definitely has a lot to benefit your business with, but it is so only if you incorporate the right features in it! Here are the top 5 features that will ensure you reap the highest benefits off your custom API:
Smart Search
For an API to be easy to use it must be able to fetch responses faster and for that a smart search is imperative. Enabling search by date & timestamps and popular criterias, you let your users have a convenient experience.
Seamless Sort
Including a smart sorting mechanism in your custom API development , you ensure your users are not bombarded with data just because your application grows with time. Simply put, you let your users retrieve the response in bits & pieces filtered as per user-imposed condition.
Paging
With paging you basically break the entire API resource into batches for a request. So basically paging helps your users have an idea about the amount of data their request resulted in and added frequency will just clarify further.
Secured Yet Fast Authentication
The goal is to keep the processing time least, a fair response time and security level high. It is of paramount importance to put efforts into the API development best practices for securing your application, after all, it deals with a heap of data.
To-The-Point
Your API shouldn’t be responding with unnecessarily long replies against user queries. So, it’s extremely important to make sure that it’s to-the-point.
Best Practices For The Most Efficient API Development
If you want to make your API user’s life simple and precise, you must follow some of the best REST API design and development practices. Here are some proven methods to follow while designing and developing APIs:
Decent Documentation
Effective Error Management
Limiting Resource Nesting
Frontend Data Caching
Advanced API Security
Uncluttered URLs
FAQs
- Web service is a set of open source protocols & standards sharing data between systems or applications. On the other hand, API is a software interface that allows two applications to mutually communicate.
- Web service usage is restricted for REST, SOAP and XML-RPC communication but API usage is open for any communication regardless of protocol type.
- Web service supports only HTTP protocol whereas API supports HTTP/HTTPS protocol.
- Web service supports XML while API supports XML and JSON.
- All Web services are APIs but all APIs are not web services.
- Simple development
- Low resource requirements
- Easy to upscale
- Explicit process Instances
- Portable & flexible by nature
- Convenient multi-environment support during development
Conclusion
API isn’t rocket science and certainly not an uncertain investment – by now you know it so well that you can explain too! However, the truth is custom API development still demands a fair share of planning and the more insights go in, the better. Are you giving a thought to API integration?