With the development of mobile Internet, Internet-based applications are becoming more and more popular. In this process, more platforms open their resources to developers to call. External API calls make content more relevant between platforms, and these open platforms also bring greater value to users, developers, and small to medium websites.

So what exactly is an API? The first explanation we found on Baidu Encyclopedia is: Apis (Application Programming Interfaces) are predefined functions designed to provide applications and developers with the ability to access a set of routines based on a piece of software or hardware without having to access the source code or understand the details of the inner workings.

It sounds a little confusing to understand, but how do you understand what an API is? When we use an app on a smart mobile, the app sends data over the network to a server, which retrieves the analysis data, performs specific actions and sends it back to your phone. Finally, the application parses the data and provides you with the information you need in a “readable way.” Apis are key to this process.

We can use another familiar example to further explain the API. Imagine a scene, when you came to the restaurant, pick up the order from the menu, first to see the list of the many dishes on the menu, the kitchen will be your order part of the “system”, but the key is how to order the message to the kitchen, and the food to the table, this time the attendant will play a role, The server is a messenger (API) who receives your order and tells the kitchen (system) what to do, in this case with “food” as feedback.

To further your understanding of the API, here’s another example of an actual API. Searching for flights online is like ordering food at a restaurant, with many options, including cities, round-trip times, and so on. Let’s say you’re booking a flight on an airline’s website. You can choose the city and time of departure, the class, and other services. To book a flight accurately, you can preview the airline’s website, visit their database, and see if there are seats available at the time of your departure, as well as flight costs and other information.

But if you don’t want to use the airline’s website, is there another direct way to access airline information? What is the logic behind online travel services such as Kayak and Expedia becoming an alternative source of flight information because they combine information from multiple airline databases, so you want to get more comprehensive information?

In the above example, the travel service platform is linked to the API of the airline website. An API is an interface that acts like a waiter in a restaurant, and an online travel service platform can request flight information from a database on an airline’s website to allow users to reserve seats, baggage options, and so on. After the API gets feedback from the airline website on the user’s request, it sends the relevant information back to the online travel service platform. Finally, the information displayed on the online travel service platform is the latest flight information that the user needs.

Not only that, apis provide a layer of security. In the process of using mobile phones, the data of mobile phones will not be exposed to other servers without authorization. Similarly, servers will never easily provide data to your mobile phones. Instead, each system is linked to small packets of data and shares only the necessary data — for example, when we order food online, we first tell the owner what we want to eat, and they tell us what to use in return, which is done to get the food we want.

The value of apis has become increasingly important, with the exception of big companies like Google, eBay, Salesforce.com, Amazon, and Expedia making money from apis. The vast majority of companies derive most of their revenue from apis, hence the “API economy”, which refers to the API market.

For many years, “API” has generally described any type of common connection interface for an application. However, as technology advances and the market demands more, there are several features of modern apis that make them more valuable and useful:

• Modern apis follow standards (usually HTTP and REST) that are developer friendly, easy to access, and widely understood;

• apis are treated as products rather than code. They are designed for a specific audience (for example, mobile developers), they are documented, and versioned in a way that users can have specific expectations about their maintenance and lifecycle;

• Because they are more standardized, they are more prescriptive in terms of security and management, and monitor and manage performance and scale;

• Like any other productized software, modern apis have their own software development life cycle (SDLC), including design, testing, build, management, and version control. In addition, the use of modern apis and versioning are well documented.

At present, more and more enterprises choose to use API to bring together high-quality partners in the corporate ecosystem and rediscover the huge economic value hidden behind. Therefore, “API economy” has become the only way for major enterprises to develop digitally. In its 2018 report, IDC ranked API economy as the second global technology trend, showing that 45% of organizations in the Asia-pacific region (excluding Japan) will adopt core cloud API strategy in the next three years. Therefore, the new apI-driven economy needs to explode.