In this webinar, Svenja is going to make a live-demo of our data integration platform Lobster_data and the ways to integrate via APIs – in essence how to publish and consume a webservice/API.
But why use APIs for integration? API is an abbreviation of Application Programming Interface and an API is an interface that facilitates communication and connectivity between two or more software applications.
In an API developers can add specific functionality to their applications eliminating the need of coding. So the main advantages of an API is that it is designed for a specific task, there is a structured format and it is well defined which makes it easy to integrate with. API providers that create easy access to the documentation and preferably a test environment have a high likelihood of high usage and thereby enabling the connection they have developed the API for – supporting their business processes.
But should we always use an API? Well yes, if it is available… however, sometimes this is not the case. Luckily there are many other ways to create this connectivity. The reality out there is that very few companies have the possibility to integrate only by using APIs – and then you need a data integration platform which offers these capabilities and many of you know that Lobster_data offers exactly that – a world of different ways to connect systems, applications etc.
Before jumping further into the API world, we are going to focus on digital transformation and enabling companies to benefit and gain value by combining data-centric and process-centric approaches in their digital transformation as well as in their daily business operation.