The modern IT infrastructure is growing into a vast, intricate network of applications, data, servers, and tools that need to interact with each other to ensure streamlined business operations. To ensure seamless integration between all the tools, developers need to design and implement effective APIs between these applications to establish a real-time connection between them.
Application programming interface (API) plays a crucial role in the coding cycle of most developers. In the modern IT infrastructure, APIs have become the foundation and are an integral part of all the tech stacks. There are four types of APIs that developers can leverage based on their needs. Integrating the wrong interfaces will make it challenging for the applications to interact with each other and accomplish the desired business results.
Following is the comprehensive API guide for developers that you can refer to select the right Application programming interface as per the requirements:
Private API
Developers can leverage a private API within the organization’s teams or departments. You can customize the API code according to the needs of the business and implement it wherever it is required. Coders should know that private APIs will not be able to use these interfaces with external resources outside of the business network. Such APIs can be leveraged when your main focus is on increasing internal productivity and project management capabilities throughout multiple applications. These APIs are more secure because they are used internally within the organization and help to accomplish business goals by enabling real-time collaboration between the applications.
Partner APIs
Open/Public
Open or public APIs have no restrictions and can be utilized by anyone because they are not limited to any specific business. Mostly these APIs are free to use; developers may need subscriptions to access these APIs based on how frequently you will require them.
Coders that have access to open or public APIS can make necessary changes and transfer data seamlessly between multiple applications and software in real-time for several purposes.
Composite APIs
Developers that need to gather real-time responses from multiple programs, applications, and tools on a unified platform need to design and implement composite APIs. These APIs enable developers to ensure that the systems process requests of multiple platforms simultaneously. Composite APIs are one of the most effective interfaces to streamline Omni channel management, monitor customer interactions, and buy from multiple channels. These APIs require a few tweaks from the coder and can be easily implemented for anyone to use.
Depending on the need of the application to interact with the other applications, developers can select the type of API you need to accomplish the desired goal.