Connect Any Application

to Any REST API

Quickly and Without Coding
WHITEPAPER
© 2019 Progress. All Rights Reserved.
 Introduction
In today’s digital business landscape, data is fragmented and scattered across
various systems. Pulling all this data together is a significant challenge, and with
businesses constantly implementing new data sources, integration complexities
just keep multiplying.

This paper explores existing approaches and introduces a new approach to data
access that seamlessly connects and integrates with REST APIs without coding.
The results include more productive developers and easy and fast access to the
data that you and your customers need to find insights and drive value.

The Evolution of Data Access

The methods for accessing data have changed significantly over the decades.
From simply connecting one machine to another, to a network of data sources,
today we have a near limitless number of on-premises and cloud-based data
sources to connect to.

ISVs have traditionally had a limited sphere of systems to connect to, such as
relational databases and data warehouses, which are on-site, controlled systems
that didn’t require extensive authentication or security measures. To meet this
need ISVs traditionally built or purchased ODBC/JDBC-driven SQL connectors. SQL
access to data has been a common approach for decades.
© 2019 Progress. All Rights Reserved.

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 The Traditional SQL Approach

SQL

ODBC/
JDBC

Big Data Real-time/ Data Operational Files

Batch warehouse databases

Enterprise applications for analytics, BI and data management all operate in

relatively the same way. Their application—the client—makes a SQL request using
ODBC or JDBC to a backing data store and the data is returned, updated, created
or deleted.

There are some common pitfalls within this model:

• Each application has a set of users that are using more and newer data
sources: REST APIs, cloud applications, operational databases and so on. The
list of sources these users require grows every year and it’s hard to keep up—
both for us and for customers.

• Given the breadth of users it can be difficult to maintain so many point

connections across so many data sources. Who is accessing data and what
© 2019 Progress. All Rights Reserved.

they’re doing with it can be a hard question to answer. And most importantly,
standardizing how data is being accessed—such as retrieving a current list of
active customers—is almost impossible.

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 The Rise of REST APIs
The long reign of direct SQL access is giving way to REST APIs—and for good
reason. As more demands are being made of data sources, it becomes prudent to
ensure the security and integrity of the data and those who access it. REST APIs
enable data safeguards and functionality in the environment including:
• Access policy
• Authentication
• Data masking

Organizations expect their BI & analytics apps to seamlessly integrate with their
According to major enterprise systems. As a result, ISVs are allocating more resources to
ProgrammableWeb, there are increase their out-of-the-box connectors and extend support to the myriad of
almost 20,000 public APIs proprietary enterprise data sources.
available. Additionally, enter-
prises are creating hundreds While on balance, the shift to an API economy is a net gain for application
of thousands of private, developers, it isn’t without its challenges. ISVs face significant hurdles when it
internal APIs comes to accessing the growing multitude of public and private APIs, including:

• SQL-based tools don’t always work well with REST APIs and it can be difficult
to access and analyze critical data

• ISVs generally don’t have the time and resources to keep up with all the latest
data sources

• Developing connectors for all these sources is cost-prohibitive as is

maintaining them

• There’s no scalable value proposition for these one-off connectors

Data Connectivity Evolves—

the Autonomous REST Connector
To enable the data connectivity that organizations demand to the dozens of
sources that will only continue to multiply, as well as mitigate the risks and pitfalls
© 2019 Progress. All Rights Reserved.

of today’s methods, Progress developed the DataDirect Autonomous REST

Connector to deliver seamless, real-time connectivity between REST data and
your ODBC/JDBC tools and applications. Autonomous REST Connector rapidly
decreases the amount of time required for applications to understand and
consume APIs through its codeless configuration and intelligent sampling.

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 How it Works

SQL

Autonomous
REST Connector
Coding Tools

REST REST

Enterprise API / Data Access Layer

Authentication Data Masking

Access policy Data Lineage

Big Data Real-time/ Data Operational Files
Encryption Replication Batch warehouse databases

Enterprises are modernizing how they are allowing their internal and external
customers to access and leverage their data. They’re doing that by exposing data
as services as opposed to allowing applications or users to go directly to the data
source.

The rationale is to standardize how data is being accessed from a governance

perspective while allowing for a standard way to consume the data using API calls.

An example would be an enterprise that stores customer data in an Oracle

database. Instead of allowing each application to issue a SQL query (that may
© 2019 Progress. All Rights Reserved.

be performant or not) to the customer tables, the enterprise could choose to

implement a REST API for requesting a list of customers. As a result, reporting, BI,
and ETL tools that depend on SQL access can no longer retrieve the customer
data.

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 That’s where Autonomous REST Connector comes in. It allows the conversion
between SQL and REST so that there’s no loss of functionality when enterprises
and applications modernize to leverage the use of REST APIs.

Key Benefits of Autonomous REST Connector

Autonomous REST Connector allows you to query API data using standard SQL by
normalizing the semi-structured JSON response data into structured data that can
be used with SQL. There’s no need to understand the complexities of the JSON
response to start effectively working with the data.

Quickly Connect Any REST API to Any Application

Autonomous REST Connector provides necessary data connectivity by

enabling the rapid development of API connections that can be seamlessly
integrated into your portfolio.

Incorporate the Essence of High-Productivity

Progress made Autonomous REST Connector codeless to expedite the

data connection process. That makes developers as productive as possible
and allows your customers’ data scientists, architects and analysts to
quickly access the data they need.

Enable Real-Time Data Analysis

Building seamless connectivity is essential to real-time data analysis.

Autonomous REST Connector not only offers fast and easy API
connection, it also empowers users to query API data as easily as through
a native application.
© 2019 Progress. All Rights Reserved.

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 No two APIs are the same, so no two connectors can be either. Autonomous REST
Connector isn’t a universal driver or connector and it doesn’t create a one-size-fits-
all connection for REST APIs. Instead, it quickly, codelessly builds enterprise-grade
connections to the data you and your customers need.

Start your free, 14–day trial today!

www.progress.com/connectors/autonomous-rest-connector

About Progress

Progress (NASDAQ: PRGS) offers the leading platform for developing and deploying strategic business applications. We enable customers
and partners to deliver modern, high-impact digital experiences with a fraction of the effort, time and cost. Progress offers powerful
tools for easily building adaptive user experiences across any type of device or touchpoint, award-winning machine learning that enables
cognitive capabilities to be a part of any application, the flexibility of a serverless cloud to deploy modern apps, business rules, web content
© 2019 Progress. All Rights Reserved.

management, plus leading data connectivity technology. Over 1,700 independent software vendors, 100,000 enterprise customers, and
two million developers rely on Progress to power their applications. Learn about Progress at www.progress.com or +1-800-477-6473.

© 2019 Progress Software Corporation and/or its subsidiaries or affiliates. All rights reserved.
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