Automating API Integrations for Greater Efficiency

An application programming interface, or API, is a piece of code that allows different applications to communicate and work together. An API essentially allows you to borrow a specific feature or function from one application and use it in another. An API integration is the connection between the API of one application and the API of another.

Often, the APIs of different systems don’t work together right out of the box, so you need to perform extra development and integration tasks to enable smooth connectivity. The challenge in managing these API integrations is that many businesses must work with hundreds of APIs. It’s not feasible to manually support APIs at scale, which is where automated API integration platforms come in.

What is an Automated API Integration Platform?

An API integration platform provides a central control panel you can use to manage all your APIs and integrations. The basic functionality includes:

• Initial API development
• Integration of new APIs
• Self-service API key management

An automated API integration platform improves upon these features by using scripts and playbooks to perform key tasks without human intervention. For example, QA engineers can use automation to run thousands of tests in a second. Some API integration workflows you could automate include:

• Generating new users, keys, and secrets
• Importing and integrating a new API
• Deleting old or unused API keys
• Security, quality assurance, and integration testing

Automating these API management and integration tasks streamlines the API lifecycle and ensures successful connectivity between all your systems and solutions.

The Benefits of Automating API Integrations

Using an automated API integration platform allows you to efficiently manage your API integrations at scale. It saves time, resources, and costs for both the business and the consumer. Some of the benefits of this include:

Efficient API Development

Typically, your options for APIs are to develop the code yourself or try to find a third-party API that fits your requirements. With an automated API integration solution, you can quickly and easily create new APIs based on existing integrations. This saves you time and money while also ensuring every API is created to the same high standard.

Best-in-Breed Solutions

When you’re looking for the best apps and infrastructure for your business requirements, the last thing you want is to be limited by API and integration issues. An automated API integration platform ensures smooth connections with the best applications and tools available for your use case. This allows you to build out your entire infrastructure with best-in-breed solutions.

Central API Management

One of the hardest parts of API management at scale is being able to find and effectively manage the hundreds of individual APIs being used by systems and applications across your enterprise. An automated API integration solution provides a central location for storing, managing, and deploying all your APIs. This allows you to easily and securely manage all your APIs and integrations across all your systems and applications.

Efficient Cloud Integrations

One of the big challenges organizations face when they migrate to the cloud is getting all their cloud services to integrate with each other and with any on-premises or private cloud infrastructure. APIs can connect your cloud platforms – like Office 365 and Salesforce – so their data and functionality work together. Sometimes you can even use cloud APIs to integrate your newer cloud services with your legacy servers and applications. When you manage these APIs with an automated API integration platform, these connections become even more efficient, ensuring you can work towards digital transformation while improving productivity.

Automated API Integration Solutions Ensure Successful Connectivity

Your business is likely using hundreds of APIs to connect your essential software and systems. An automated API integration solution strives to ensure these connections are successful. It simplifies the creation, management, and integration of APIs so you can make the most of your existing solutions as well as work towards full digital transformation in the cloud.