Month: August 2021

#IBMi folks. How do you search against PDF or .doc document if you want to find a phrase ‘IBM i’ and you don’t want to see phrase ‘IBM is’. #as400 #iseries #desperation #IBM this naming is a headache ??

– Bart G (@gira79)08:36 – Aug 16, 2021

APIs are helping companies grow revenue, reduce costs and streamline business processes. It’s been exciting to see how many IBM i users have begun implementing an API strategy to connect their IBM i applications with their customers, business partners and with the latest technology. One of the key lessons we have learned is that you can dramatically increase the value of an API and simplify the API maintenance by API enabling a business process rather than just the update to the database.

Don’t get me wrong, there is significant value to creating an API interface to database updates. By API enabling database access (rather than directly accessing the database via SQL), you can add sophisticated authorization and authentication functions like JSON Web Tokens (JWTs) and OAuth, you can sanitize the incoming data to ensure it is valid, you can trap errors and log them, and you can manage all the database connections in one place.

However, one of the key benefits of API enablement is you can build orchestration and business process functions directly into the API. For example, instead of creating an API that directly adds an order record to an open order file via SQL, you can create a “New Order” API. In the New Order API, you might add functions like checking the customer’s credit, checking available inventory, and verifying the customer’s address. You might want to add authorization and authentication functions like JWTs and OAuth. All of these functions can be added to the API code. Loose coupling between the application calling the API and the application being called means you can make changes on either side of the API without breaking the communication. You can add functions (eg. send out a confirmation email or text), change functions and even change the database schema without breaking the API connection.

We have several customers who are using these orchestration functions to call public APIs as part of their API business process. We are working with an insurance company that needs the latitude and longitude of a property to provide an accurate quote. Sometimes that latitude and longitude comes with the API request and sometimes they only get an address. Their API code looks at the incoming data. If it includes the latitude and longitude it calls the RPG quoting program. If it does not include the latitude and longitude, it automatically calls out to the Google Maps API with the address to retrieve the lat/long before calling the quote program. We have other customers who include software development kits from Amazon or Shopify for calling their APIs which perform the authentication and data serialization functions for them automatically. In both these situations, the customer is able to update their RPG code without breaking the API connection.

Using JavaScript for the API code makes adding functions to your APIs simple. You can simply download existing modules for things like OAuth, JWT processing, label printing, dashboard creation, and so many other functions. There are over 1.7 million open source JavaScript modules to choose from. Using JavaScript for APIs is right in line with IBM’s strategy for “blended” application development in which you always choose the right language for the job. JavaScript is purpose built for web services. By connecting it to your core RPG applications, you get the best of all worlds – highly functional, secure APIs that support the latest technology.

If you want to learn more about creating business process APIs with JavaScript and RPG, just reach out to us at www.eradani.com or via email at [email protected]. We have worked with a wide variety of IBM i users across all industries to help them implement their IBM i API strategy.

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I recently went online to buy a speakerphone for use with our company conference calls. In less than 5 minutes, I was able to browse a variety of options, get price and shipping quotes and enter my order. The speakerphone arrived at my door later that same day. Without the instant communication between companies provided by real time APIs, that speed would have been unthinkable. Every industry today is being transformed by real time APIs that enable that kind of online processing.

Yet, I run across companies on a regular basis that are still using batch processing for operations that could be significantly improved if they were done in real time. Companies often share information across applications or with their business partners by sending whole files of data via FTP or EDI interfaces. There can be delays of minutes, hours or even days before the data is available to the receiver.

We recently worked with a distribution company that listed its inventory on Amazon. They had hundreds of thousands of items that they bought from a variety of manufacturers and then resold. There were pricing changes to those items every day. The problem was, they were sending a weekly batch price update to Amazon so oftentimes the prices listed were out of date which led to mispriced orders and a complex reconciliation process. They contacted Eradani about moving to Amazon’s real time APIs. Using the real time APIs, when they update the price in their internal system it can be immediately reflected on the Amazon site. This not only eliminates mispriced orders and the manual order reconciliation process, it also gives them the ability to respond quickly to changing market conditions or offers made by their competitors.

A transportation company we work with had to wait until the end of day to receive batch transmissions from their customers identifying what shipments they had ready for pickup and delivery. That meant they could not schedule their trucks until they received the customer’s information. Now, they provide a real time API that allows customers to update pickup information as soon as orders become ready to ship. That gives the shipping company several extra hours to plan and to deploy their fleet. It also means that they can get products to their customers’ customers more quickly.

Real time updates also ensure that company executives know the exact state of their business at any moment in time. They can spot potential issues in the supply chain and take remedial action early. They can be first to see nascent opportunities and they can respond rapidly to emerging competitive threats.

The exploding availability of APIs is making real time communication and data sharing between business partners and customers a reality. Companies are eliminating manual processes, increasing business agility and improving customer satisfaction by creating and using APIs. The day is not far off when companies that rely on slow batch processing will find themselves left out of today’s increasingly interconnected business environment.

Implementing real-time APIs requires high speed connections, error handling and API monitoring to ensure that users of the API are getting the response they need in a timely fashion. Because real time APIs are making updates to critical systems, companies must also ensure that their APIs are highly secure.

At Eradani, our experts work with companies every day to help them take advantage of APIs to provide and consume real time information. If you would like to explore ways real time APIs might help your organization, contact us at www.eradani.com or via email at [email protected]. We’d love to work with you!

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