Cloud service needs API to exist
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Written by Marrti Kontula, Chief Technology Officer
The term “API” is causing a lot of discussion and comes to the surface especially when it comes to cloud-based platform solutions. So, what makes this three-letter term “API” so topical? The API and its use is a broad concept, but I am now trying to open the use of the EnerKey API and its basic principles in a concise and easy-to-chew way.
I also encourage you to read the blog published earlier in June, where we talk about EnerKey’s new EnerKey API Push function written by our Business Product Manager Juho Linsuri.
The EnerKey API
The EnerKey API has been created to meet today’s needs for development of a modern software-as-a-service solution. Creating and maintaining an API requires a long-term approach and requires professionalism from its creators as well as the ability to perceive large entities.
In terms of partnerships, the EnerKey API offers easy integration and a scalable model, while for the end user of the EnerKey service, the existence of the EnerKey API appears as an effortless way to use our EnerKey SaaS, fast data processing, and more comprehensive service packages.
We are living in a period of strong growth and the methods that have been used in the past to obtain measurement data does not scale up to the level required by growth rate or to match international competitiveness. The Application Programming Interface, or API, opens up a secure way for systems to communicate with each other in a way that reduces manual work, speeds up processes, reduces margins of error of manual work, and is a secure way to move data between databases.
In terms of measurement data collection and processing, times have changed radically. To put it bluntly, we can state that manual processing of measurement data is old-fashioned and costs unnecessary work hours. The truth sadly is, that in people’s hands information can change along the way, while the API effortlessly transfers the data unchanged from its source to the desired destinations. An important advantage of the EnerKey API is its scalability as well. By making the machine to work for us, we can achieve significantly more.
API is a lifeline for any cloud-based service
The API is not an add-on to EnerKey’s service solution created just for the fun of it, its existence is a lifeline and a must have in today’s market. Technology is evolving at a rapid pace, and no slowdown to be seen. Today, the aim is no longer to create services in the in others’ footsteps.
The aim is to bring in more complementary services to existing solutions. It’s not sensible to create systems one after the other from the beginning that don’t communicate to each other and cause unnecessary manual work for their users, taking time away from conducting their core businesses.
When building a cloud-based service platform, it’s important to see the big picture and pay close attention to the needs of the software end users. Even the finest systems don’t serve their purpose and the potential it offers, if it is troublesome from the customer’s point of view. This can mean requiring a lot of manual work to maintain data, or having to contact the service provider even for basic measures such as creating new user IDs etc.
The EnerKey API ensures that systems communicate effortlessly and securely with each other, minimizes the amount of manual work, and ensures that data does not change along the way as it moves from one database to another.