API -Application Programming Interface

by Nico / YuwanZhang

API - Application Programming Interface to build and integrete the connection between different application software , as different application software can communucate through exchange of data and information in their own application with each other ,even we do not know how the infrasturcture and resources behind work .

The advantages to adapt API is to provide opportunities of innovation , simplify design /build /implementation, help business and teams collaborate and ensure privacy and security of data

Since nowadays we are living a VUCA world , business need change quickly in response to the shifting markets,and to be accommoadate changing business needs the IT infrastructure and resources need to change frequently also . API is an interface , thourh it can leverage each application's data and information ,in addition to leverage the data and information plays an important role for enterprises to be competitve in a highly saturate market because nowaday how much information or data each owns can decide the future of enterprise .

API is a set of rules and protocols being used by computer or applicaiton which define and explain how different accplications communicate with each other , and acts like a bridge through tranferring data between an application and web server.

How one application can get the information or data from API ,for example: (1)Sending Request : When an application wanna to get information what it wants , it will first call API .

(2) Receiving requirest : after API got request then will call to web server .(3) Sending data to API :Once web server received the call from API, it will send the information which the application requested to API .(4) Receiving data : once API receive the requested data then will return them to the application .

For example , when we are suring a website which we never use before and we need to create a new account on this website , to make us to be convinient to create the account , sometimes we can used our existed facebook , twitter ,Google account , this is one type of API.

References

Red Hat (2017) ,Understand APIS, avalaible from https://www.redhat.com/en/topics/api/what-are-application-programming-interfaces

IBM Cloud Education (2020) ,Application Programming Interface (API), avalaible from https://www.ibm.com/cloud/learn/api