What are Internal APIs?
Since APIs are used everywhere now, companies heavily rely on them to keep up their digital infrastructure. APIs further have different types: Composite APIs, Internal APIs, etc. The Internal APIs are built scalable because they have to tend to the growing needs of a business.
Let’s take a look at them.
Internal API
Internal APIs or Private APIs are the ones that are only exposed to the clients and developers within the organization. APIs are generally the first step in developing a digital product or a service of a company.
The companies have a lot of private data that needs to be protected at all costs. It may be related to their product, or it can be employees’ information. Data protection does not mean that the developers within the organization cannot have access to it. And here, the internal APIs come into the picture. A data exchange format, for instance, JSON or XML, is used when protected data is requested by a developer within the organization using internal APIs.
Benefits of Using Internal APIs
Let’s take a look at some of the perks of using internal APIs.
Cross-department Data Access
A company cannot afford to have its data compromised. So when the data is needed by some other department of the same company, internal APIs are used to transfer the data securely.
Building An App-Enabled Business
As the business grows and becomes more complex, the internal APIs help to quickly scale different applications. It also helps with creating the same application but for other platforms like IOS, Android, etc.
Enabling Contractors to Build Features
Sometimes in a company, there is no tech professional to build an application. So when the need arises, the company can hire an external contractor and provide them enough limited access to the internal API to develop a particular feature.