Official resource
Application Programming Interface (API) — definition
A neutral, citable definition of an API.
API, Interface, Integration: What Vendors Mean
These words appear in almost every technology sales conversation. Learn what they actually mean, why connecting two systems can be easy or extremely difficult, and what to ask when a vendor says “yes, we integrate with that.”
The short version
When a vendor says “we integrate with your CAD,” that is the beginning of the conversation, not the answer. Integration can mean a real-time two-way connection built on a documented interface, or it can mean a nightly file that somebody uploads by hand. Both get described with the same word in a sales meeting. The questions below are how you find out which one you are being offered.
Start here
If you read one thing on this subject, read this.
Research
Interoperability of Real-Time Public Safety Data: Challenges and Possible Future States
Why public safety systems still struggle to exchange data in real time, and what would have to change.
Why it matters
Explains that most integration problems are structural rather than a failing of your particular vendor.
Questions to ask your vendor
- Is it one-way or two-way?
- Is information exchanged in real time?
- Is there a documented API?
- Is the interface already deployed with our specific vendor and version?
- Is middleware required?
- Who builds the connection?
- Who maintains it?
- Is there an additional license or recurring cost?
- What happens when either system is upgraded?
- Can we retrieve the same data ourselves?
This is a reading list, not a guide
Everything above was published by someone else, and is here because it is the clearest treatment of the subject we could find and verify. The Hub’s own guide to this topic is still being written. If you know a better source than the ones listed, that is worth telling us before it is.
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