History is full of dynamic duos like peanut butter and jelly or Batman and Robin—but is it time to add APIs and ERPs to the mix? According to a 2019 study by Cloud Elements, APIs and ERPs are essential to modern business strategy. 55 percent of respondents believe that API integrations are “critical” to their operations. What’s more, the survey’s participants say that ERPs are one of their top three business use cases for API integrations.

Idempotent operations produce the same result even when the operation is repeated many times. The result of the 2nd, 3rd, and 1,000th repeat of the operation will return exactly the same result as the 1st time. In this post, we will demystify the concept of idempotency—a fundamental property that ensures consistency, predictability, and reliability in APIs and distributed systems.

REST and SOAP are two critical web services technologies that revolutionize how businesses use APIs. Since APIs are so common, it's important to test them regularly to find vulnerabilities or potential operating problems within the web service. To test a SOAP or REST service, you can use tools like SoapUI or Postman to send requests to the service endpoint, validate responses, and verify that the service behaves as expected under various conditions.

Legacy databases often come with numerous challenges, such as limited scalability, outdated security measures, and compatibility issues with modern applications. These constraints can hinder business agility and increase maintenance costs. Modernizing your database infrastructure is crucial for leveraging advanced features, enhancing security, and ensuring seamless integration with contemporary software.

REST APIs are a powerful tool to bring together multiple applications. While REST APIs are extremely useful, creating and deploying them into production is a highly complex and time-consuming process. If you’re building your own REST API, you should be familiar with some of the industry best practices for naming REST API endpoints. For many developers, using a development platform is a good way to get started. It streamlines the development process and ensures you're able to get started immediately.

REST Clients, or Representational State Transfer Clients, are essential tools in the world of web development and API integration. These clients facilitate seamless communication between applications and web services using the principles of REST architecture. A REST client is a software tool, library, or framework that enables developers to interact with RESTful web services by making HTTP requests and processing responses.

Digitalization is revolutionizing every aspect of our lives, and understanding the concepts of open source and open standards is crucial. But these aren't just geeky tech concepts, they represent a whole philosophy of collaboration and sharing that's fueling innovation. And open standards? Think of them as the great enablers of interconnectivity. These guidelines ensure different technologies can talk to each other and share data seamlessly across platforms.

APIs are bits of software that act as interpreters for two different programs. They’ll connect to each service via endpoints and relay messages back and forth, doing the work of software integration for you. But how does this actually look in the real world? Read on for some examples of APIs. Here's the key things to know about some of the examples of APIs in everyday life.

REST APIs are the basis of all interactions between different applications. Many companies and organizations today offer APIs to interact with their applications. REST APIs allow third-party application developers to perform operations such as transmitting or accessing data from one application to another. This is called a public API. This means that this API is intended for interaction with third-party apps.

Organizations deploying Siemens SIMATIC PLCs (Programmable Logic Controllers) will logically want to track and manage PLC metrics. Exactly how these metrics are managed will depend upon the specific needs of the organization. For instance, organizations that would like to send PLC data directly to a Microsoft SQL Server database can use the TDS (Tabular Data Stream) protocol. But what if you wanted to subsequently access this data via a REST API?

Integrating and calling other APIs is an important step in the development process. APIs allow different systems to communicate and share data, enabling developers to build more dynamic and feature-rich applications. Whether it's accessing third-party services, aggregating data from multiple sources, or automating workflows, the ability to effectively integrate and call other APIs is a key component of a successful software strategy.

Today, we're looking at MySQL vs MS SQL Server. Relational database management systems (RDBMS) form the backbone of enterprise IT. The main difference between MySQL and Microsoft SQL Server is that MySQL is an open-source RDBMS known for its cross-platform compatibility and cost-effectiveness, while Microsoft SQL Server is a commercial RDBMS primarily designed for the Windows platform, offering advanced features and tight integration with Microsoft technologies.

Your API documentation is just as important as your API. It defines how easy it is for users to learn, understand, and use your open-source or paid-for product. In this post, DreamFactory highlights eight of the best API documentation examples from well-known tools. You can use these examples for inspiration when creating your API docs. Here are the key takeaways to know about each of these API documentation examples.