API

The international standard ISO/IEC/IEEE 26514:2022 defines an API as a set of functions, protocols, parameters and objects for building software that works with an external system or service. The Gabler Banklexikon, a German banking dictionary, puts it more practically: an API makes a program's functions accessible to other systems and is the prerequisite for linking them by machine.

Germany's Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) notes that web service interfaces Interface An interface is the point at which two systems, programs or components meet and exchange data; the word also covers the user interface between a person and software. Read in the glossary → are often built with REST (Representational State Transfer) or an alternative called SOAP. Its IT baseline protection guidance (IT-Grundschutz, module APP.3.1) covers how clients prove their identity before accessing protected resources. Roy T. Fielding set out REST in his 2000 doctoral dissertation as an architectural style rather than a protocol or standard. At its centre is the resource, any information that can be named; what sets REST apart is a uniform interface between components.

In our projects, an API or SFTP SFTP SFTP (SSH File Transfer Protocol) transfers files securely over a Secure Shell (SSH) connection; despite the name, it is a separate protocol from the older FTP. Read in the glossary → links our bespoke software to SAP SAP SAP is a software company whose business software includes enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems; an SAP landscape is the set of SAP systems a company runs. , other ERP systems ERP ERP (enterprise resource planning) is cross-departmental business software that manages and analyses processes such as production, sales, logistics, finance and human resources. Read in the glossary → or a warehouse management system WMS WMS stands for warehouse management system; according to the short description of VDI 3601, its task is to manage and optimise a company's internal storage and transport systems. Read in the glossary → , which stay unchanged. Some of our applications have their own API, protected by an access token; on a knowledge platform we built for a pharmaceutical logistics Pharma logistics Pharma logistics is the term we use for storing, transporting and delivering medicinal products and other pharma-sector goods, such as promotional material and supplies for patients. Read in the glossary → provider, for example, other programs and AI agents use it. In one shop project, a REST API passes documents such as data sheets and certificates to external systems.