Data Management Glossary
Application Programming Interface (API)
What is an API?
An Application Programming Interface (API) is a set of protocols, routines, and tools for building software applications. APIs define how software components should interact with each other, providing a standard way for developers to create programs that can access services or data provided by other software components or systems.
APIs allow developers to access services or data without needing to understand how those services or data are implemented. Instead, they can use the API’s predefined set of functions and methods to interact with the service or data. This makes it easier and faster for developers to create new applications that can leverage existing services and data sources.
APIs are often used to connect different software components or systems, such as web applications or mobile apps to backend servers or databases. They can also be used to integrate different software tools, enabling them to work together seamlessly.
APIs can be public or private, depending on whether they are available for external developers to use or are restricted to use within a specific organization or system. Many public APIs are available from companies such as Google, Amazon, and Twitter, which provide access to their services and data for developers to build applications on top of.
APIs are an essential tool for modern software development, enabling developers to build complex and powerful applications quickly and efficiently by leveraging existing services and data sources.
API-Driven Data Management and Data Migration
Komprise Smart Data Workflows can enrich data by allowing the execution of external functions or cloud services either at the edge, datacenter or cloud and then tagging data with metadata. Examples include: Snowflake, Amazon Macie, Azure machine learning.
Komprise Elastic Data Migration is both UI and API driven. Here are is an example of a hospital group who used the Komprise API to migrate petabytes of SMB files from EMC Isilon access zones to Qumulo. Komprise set up 400+ migration jobs via scripting using the APIs and migrated 278 million SMB files spanning nearly 1500 shares. Because of the number of shares and folders in the environment it was unrealistic to set up migrations one at a time via the UI, which led to Komprise recommending the API approach.