Module 1 Review Flashcards
What are the objectives of Module 1?
(Slide 2)
- Explain what application networks are and their benefits
- Describe how to build application networks using API-led connectivity
- Explain what web services and APIs are
- Make calls to secure and unsecured APIs
What are application networks?
(Slide 50)
It’s a network of applications, data, and devices connected with APIs to make them pluggable and to create reusable services
What are the benefits of application networks?
(Slide 24)
- Emerges bottom-up via self service
- Provides visibility, security and governability at every API node
- It’s reasonable: It bends, not breaks - built for change
Describe how to build application networks using API-led connectivity
(Slide 14, 15)
- You need to organize APIs into 3 categories
- Systems API
- Process API
- Experience API
What is systems API?
(Slide 14, 15)
- It connects directly to core systems of record (databases, ERP systems)
- They handle the complexity of the underlying systems and expose their data in a reusable way
What is process APIs?
(Slide 14, 15)
- Orchestrate data and functionality from one or more system APIs to create specific business processes
- They handle business logic and processes, ensuring data is combined or transformed as needed
What is experience APIs?
(Slide 14, 15)
- Designed to serve specific user experience
- They interact directly with the user interface or client applications
Explain what an API is
(Slide 26, 51)
- Application Programing Interface
- Provides information for how to communicate with a software component
- Defines:
- Operations (what to call)
- Inputs (what to send w/ a call)
- Outputs (what you get back from a call)
- Underlying data types
- Defines functionalities independent of implementation
Explain what a web service is
(Slide 29)
- A method of communication that allows 2 software systems to exchange data over the internet
What are the 2 main types of web services?
(Slide 31)
- SOAP web services
- Traditional, more complex
- The communication rules are defined in an XML-based WSDL file
- RESTful web services
- Recent, simpler type
- Use the existing HTTP communication protocol
What are the different parts of a web service?
(Slide 30)
- The web service API
- Describes how you interact with the web service
- It may or may not (though it should!) be explicitly defined in a file
- It could be any sort of text in any type of file but ideally should implement some standard API description language (or specification)
- The web service interface implementing the API
- Is the code providing the structure to the application so it implements the API
- This may be combined with the actual implementation code
- The web service implementation itself
- Is the actual code and application
To call web services, you need to?
(Slide 40)
- Write code to make the HTTP request
Or
- Have a tool to make the HTTP request
What needs to be specified to make API calls?
(Slide 40)
- HTTP method
- Request headers
- Request body
What are the tools for testing API calls?
- An API portal with an API console
- Advanced Rest Client
- Postman
- A cURL command-line utility
What are the types of APIs based on security features?
(Slide 41)
- Secure APIs:
- Require authentication - Unsecured APIs:
- May be public and do not require authentication
What’s the title of Module 1?
(Slide 1)
Introducing application networks and API-led connectivity
True or false, each project adds value to the application network?
(Slide 21)
True
What are some key characteristics or practices associated with secured APIs?
(Slide 41)
- You may need to provide credentials or a token
- Often a proxy is created to govern access to an API
- We will call and then later créate an API secured by credentials
- You can also secure an API with other authentication protocols
- OAuth, SAML, JWT, and more
What do RESTful web services return in response to a call?
(Slide 42)
An HTTP status code with the response
What does the HTTP status code provide to the client?
(Slide 42)
Feedback for the outcome of the operation (succeeded, failed, updated)
What should a good API return regarding HTTP status codes?
(Slide 42)
Status codes that align with the HTTP specification
Which API layers correspond to Central IT, LoB IT, and Developers? Describe the actions associated with each role.
(Slide 16)
- Central IT: Systems APIs
- Unlocking assets and decentralizing access
- LoB IT: Process APIs
- Discover, reuse assets and compose information
- Developers: Experience APIs
- Discover, self-service, reuse and consume
What is C4E and what are the key points involved?
(Slide 18, 50)
It’s a cross-functional team that ensures assets are…
- Productized & published
- Consumable
- Consumed broadly
- Fully leveraged
Success for C4E is measured on?
(Slide 18)
Asset consumption
What are the key groups involved in the C4E?
(Slide 18)
- Innovation teams
- LoB IT
- Central IT
What do people mean when they say API?
(Slide 27)
- An API interface definition file (API specification): Defines what you can call, what you send it, and what you get back.
- A web service: The actual API implementation you can make calls to or the interface of that API implementation.
- An API proxy: An application that restores access to a web service, restricting access and usage through the use of an API gateway.
In web services, what factors influence the data exchange between software systems?
(Slide 29)
- Bridging protocols: (HTTP, SOAP, REST)
- Platforms: (Windows, Linux)
- Programing languages: (Java, Python, C#)
- Hardware architecture
What do you use to make calls to an unsecured API (an implementation)?
(Slide 44)
ARC
Identify the biggest challenges faced by IT today
(Slide 4 & 5)
- IT can’t grow fast enough
- Digital pressures create a widening transformation delivery gap
What does the transformation delivery gap mean and what’s needed?
(Slide 5, 6, 7, 8)
- A growing disparity between the increasing demand for digital solutions and the capacity of IT teams to deliver those solutions within a required timeframe
- New IT Operating Model
What does the new IT Operating Model emphasize?
(Slide 9)
Consumption
What is SAP and what does it stand for?
(Slide 10)
- It’s an enterprise resource planning system
- Systems, Applications & Products
What is the definition of REST?
(Slide 33)
An architectural style where clients and servers exchange representations of resources using the standard HTTP protocol
With regards to RESTful web services, what can clients do to avoid repeated network calls?
(Slide 33)
Clients can cache previous responses
With regards to RESTful web services, what does it mean for a server to be stateless?
(Slide 33)
The server does not remember any client state from previous requests
Is a RESTful web service stateless?
(Slide 33)
Yes
In RESTful web services calls, data and resources are represented using what?
(Slide 34)
URIs
In RESTful web services, resources are accessed or changed using what?
(Slide 34)
A fixed set of operations
In a RESTful web service call, what are the fixed set of operations that access or change resources?
(Slide 34)
- C: Create
- R: Read
- U: Update
- D: Delete
In RESTful web service calls, describe what (GET)/companies means.
(Slide 34, 35)
This call retrieves a list of all companies in the system
Define each RESTful web service request method
(Slide 35)
- GET: Retrieves the current state of a resource in some representation (usually JSON or XML)
- POST: Creates a new resource
- DELETE: Deletes a resource
- PUT: Replaces a resource completely
5: PATCH: Partially updated a resource
What are the examples of representations used in the GET request method in a RESTful web service?
(Slide 35)
- JSON
- XML
What are the characteristics of JSON?
(Slide 36)
- A lightweight data-interchange format
- Human-readable results
- Supports collections and maps
What should API documentation include?
(Slide 37)
The list of all possible resources, how to get access to the API, and more
What is an API portal?
(Slide 37)
It accelerates onboarding by providing developers a centralized place for discovering all the tools they need to successfully use the API
What tools do developers have access to in an API portal to successfully use the API?
(Slide 37)
- Documentation, tutorials, code snippets, and examples
- A way to register applications to get access to the API
- A way to provide feedback and make requests
- A way to test the API by making calls to it
What are some ways you can learn about APIs?
(Slide)
- API Documentation
- API Portals
- API Directories
What are the 3 activities outlined in ‘Walkthrough 1 - 1: Explore an API directory and an API portal’?
(Slide 38)
- Browse the APIs.guru API directory
- Explore the API reference for an API (Vimeo)
- Explore the API portal for an API to be used in the course
What does the (GET)/companies?country=France call do in a RESTful web service?
(Slide 34, 35)
This call retrieves a list of companies in France
Explain the purpose of the
(GET)/companies/3 call in RESTful web services.
(Slide 34, 35)
This call retrieves detailed information about the company with the ID of 3
What action is performed by the
(POST)/companies call with JSON/XML in the HTTP body in a RESTful web service?
(Slide 34, 35)
This call creates a new company resource using the data in the JSON or XML body
What does the (DELETE)/companies/3 call accomplish in a RESTful web service?
(Slide 34, 35)
It deletes the company resource with the ID of 3 from the system
In RESTful web service calls, describe what the (PUT)/companies/3 with JSON/XML in the HTTP body means.
(Slide 34, 35)
This call completely replaces the company resource with ID 3 using the data in the request body
What are some common HTTP status codes, and what do they mean?
(Slide 43)
- 200: OK - The request succeeded
- 201: Created - A new resource or object in a collection
- 304: Not modified - Nothing was modified by request
- 400: Bad request- The request could not be performed by the server due to bad syntax
- 401: Unauthorized - Authorization credentials are required, or user does not have access to the resource
- 404: Resource not found - The URI is not recognized by the server
- 500: Server error - Generic something went wrong on the server side
What do you use to make calls to a secured API (an API proxy)?
(Slide 44)
ARC
What do you use to make calls to an API proxy endpoint?
(Slide 44)
API console
What are some examples of API calls?
(Slide 44)
GET, DELETE, POST, PUT
What do you need to create to drive API-led connectivity?
(Slide 50)
C4E
What activities are covered in ‘Walkthrough 1 - 2: Make calls to an API?
(Slide 44)
- Use ARC to make calls to an unsecured API (an implementation)
- Make GET, DELETE, POST, and PUT calls
- Use ARC to make calls to a secured API (an API proxy)
- Use the API console in an API portal to make calls to a managed API using a mocking service
- Use the API console to make calls to an API proxy endpoint
What happens to the attributes of a Mule event in a flow after an outbound HTTP request is made?
(Knowledge Quiz 1)
Attributes are replaced with new attributes from the HTTP request response (which might be null)
What is a Mule event?
(Knowledge Quiz 1)
It’s a message object that flows through a Mule application, consisting of 2 main parts: the payload & the attributes
In the context of Mule events, what are attributes?
(Knowledge Quiz 1)
They are additional details about the message, like headers or query parameters, that provide context for processing the main data (payload)
In the context of Mule events, what are payloads?
(Knowledge Quiz 1)
They are the main data or content being transmitted in the message
What MuleSoft API-led connectivity layer is intended to expose part of a backend database without business logic?
(Knowledge Quiz 1)
Systems API
What is one part of MuleSoft’s description of an application network?
(Knowledge Quiz 1)
It creates reusable APIs and assets designed to be consumed by other business units
According to MuleSoft, what is the C4E’s role in the new IT operating model?
(Knowledge Quiz 1)
Creates and manages discoverable assets to be consumed by LoB developers
What is a core characteristic of the modern API?
(Knowledge Quiz 1)
API is designed first using an API specification for rapid feedback
