What exactly is an API and does seventhings offer it? In the following article we give you all the details you need to know.
1 - What is an API ?
💡 The term API
API stands for application programming interface.
- It is a set of commands, functions, protocols, and objects that programmers can use to create software or interact with an external system.
- Accordingly, the API allows applications to communicate with each other.
- The API is not the database or even the server, but the code that regulates the access points for the server and enables communication.
- As a result, the exchange of data between different systems is accelerated and simplified significantly.
2 - Which API levels are in use at seventhings?
Internal API
- Like most other software systems, seventhings is also based on an Internal API.
- This is used, for example, between the backend and the frontend, as well as between the backend and the mobile apps.
Closed or Private API
- The use case of our customers often has the need to enable a connection of our software to third party systems.
- As our customers or partners have specific needs and an individual system is in use, they can work with a Closed API.
- The provision of a Private API (Closed (REST-) API) for our customers and partners is planned for the future. These are also referred to as OPEN-To-Customer API and OPEN-To-Partner API.
3 - Which other API levels are there?
Open or Public API
- Open APIs are usually only used if the software is for B2C (Business to Customer). In our case, it is a B2B (Business to Business) software, so an Open API (Open-To-All-API) would not reach the right target group (any developer and end user).
- ℹ️As described above, the term Open API is often equated with Open-to-Customer or Open-to-Partner API, which conceptually belong to the group of Closed API though, the latter of which seventhings will provide in the future.