Systems | Development | Analytics | API | Testing

Like most organizations today, you’re probably looking to optimize your business model through increased technology adoption. The more successful digital transformation projects look at changing business trends and seek to incorporate those trends within their own specific environment. Similarly, as API technology grows, promising new functionalities and integrations, enterprises should aim to embrace the utility of APIs within their wider technology strategy.

Picture this: a customer reaches out with a seemingly simple request—convert a date field to a different format in their API responses. The catch? They only have read-only access to their database, which means no schema updates, no new columns, just pure data transformation. This intriguing challenge led us down the rabbit hole to rediscover one of DreamFactory's most powerful yet underutilized features: enhancing API calls with SQL functions.

System administrators, DBAs, and application developers all know about the need for data integration. That’s when you have to pull data from one database, application, or web service to another. Fortunately, this task is a lot less challenging than it used to be because APIs (application programming interfaces) are so popular today. APIs provide a standard way to share the data and services of one system with another, even if the two systems are otherwise incompatible.

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A database is a critical piece of software for any organization. It stores data and allows users to access and modify it as needed. Many different databases are available, like AWS' Amazon RDS or Microsoft's Azure, so deciding which is suitable for your organization can be challenging. This article will discuss the different kinds of databases and help you choose the right database for your needs.

Storing information in a relational database and sharing it via a RESTful API is a very common scenario these days. Depending on your RDBMS (relational database management system), this may take a lot of development effort. One solution that attempts to simplify the process is the PostgREST web server add-on for PostgreSQL. If your organization uses the PostgreSQL database, PostgREST quickly adds basic CRUD (create, read, update, delete) functions in an easy-to-use RESTful HTTP interface.

Whether you’re working in the marketing department or the operations department, you’ve probably heard a lot about APIs and API integrations. API integration is the process of connecting different software systems or applications through their respective APIs to enable them to communicate and share data seamlessly. These have become the “buzz” terms of IT departments in recent years as more enterprises embrace the trend toward digital transformation.

Modern application development and IT infrastructure depend heavily on the use of APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) and API Management. APIs offer a standard set of rules for systems and applications to connect and interact. Whether you are integrating a new application into an IT infrastructure or connecting the modular components of a microservices-based application, APIs are one of the fastest and most cost-effective ways to establish those connections.

Interoperability is one of the main reasons to reverse engineer APIs. Unlike a few decades ago, when software could exist in isolation, nowadays, a program runs on a complicated operating system and involves communication with several libraries created by different people. Reverse engineering APIs for interoperability involves API integration and learning new ways in which programs can exchange and use information.

DreamFactory's custom SQL endpoints let you create APIs that are tailored to your exact needs, making your data more flexible and powerful. In this article, we will show you how to set up these endpoints, provide practical examples, and explain how to connect endpoints to your external systems.