What is Google APIs & its Importance for Business
What is Google APIs & its Importance for Business
What is Google API?
Google APIs are set of application programming interface (API) developed by Google which allows communication with Google Services. APIs adhere to specific rules and methods to clearly communicate requests and response.
Why it is important?
The ability to access data and computing resources greatly increases a developer’s efficiency. It is much easier to use an API than to build every single program, method or dataset from scratch. APIs are built with the developer in mind and many a time does not offer a graphical user interface (GUI). Google offers APIs that can be applied to many different fields and sectors. APIs are often used in web development, machine learning, data science, and system administration workflows.
Real life scenarios for companies:
One of the greatest challenges for companies and developers is integrating their own system infrastructure with these cloud-based platforms or services. APIs are the real key in all process. Basically Four possible scenarios for companies:
- PaaS APIs:Platform-as-a-Service, these APIs are designed to provide access and functionality for a cloud environment. This means integration with databases, messaging systems, portals and storage components.
- SaaS APIs:Software-as-a-Service, these service APIs build a connection between cloud-based software and the entire system infrastructure. CRM and ERP are the real examples of it.
- IaaS APIs:Infrastructure-as-a-service, these APIs helps control specific cloud resources and their distribution. Network configuration and workload management can also be an area where these APIs are used.
Basically, we can say the following: “A web service cannot be called a cloud service if it does not have an API”
API Architecture:
APIs are a set of methods that allow programs to communicate with one another. To communicate effectively, APIs use the client-server model. The following is a visual representation of the client-server model: 
Client: The client is a computing device (e.g. a Smartphone, laptop) that makes a request for some computing resource or data.
Server: The server has data and or computing resource stored on it. Its job is to interpret and fulfill a client’s request. Let’s take a small example to understand this scenario: Let us say that I need to know about today’s Breaking News. To do this I will need to ask someone who knows about that. Let us assume that computers are not yet at our disposal. Thus we would typically look at today’s newspaper or maybe listen to the radio. In this process, there are two distinct participants. First one is me (who wants the breaking news).The second one is the Radio or Newspaper (who provides the information). If we were to name the two participants which we have:
- Consumer who wants to consume a specific information. Also called as Client.
- A provider who provides the information. Also, called a server.
Accessing Cloud APIs:
The Cloud APIs can be accessed from server applications using our current libraries. Also, access the same services via our command line tools or our Google Cloud Platform Console web UI. This is a basic understanding of APIs. To know more about these you can always go to Qwiklabs. Qwiklabs offers step-by-step instructions and different scenarios and trains you to become a cloud expert.