Open Data and APIs

Data Producers

Data Consumers

Data Accessibility

• Browse

• Download

• Manually collate

• Scrapers

• CDs

• and … APIs

Humungous amounts of

data being generated

• Open data initiatives

• Unstructured datasets

• Growth in data being produced

How is this data being

used?

• Analysis

• Applications

Data Accessibility

• Application Programming Interface (API)

• Act as interfaces between programs.

• Means of distributing data.

Why data APIs? • Machine readability

• Query relevant bits

• Information silos

• Mashups

• Provide insights on usage

The whole is greater

than the sum of its

parts

Design Issues • Who are the users and possible use-cases.

• Load Management.

• Static Vs Dynamic data.

• Can the data publisher provide infrastructure required for

an API?

Bulk data downloads • Usable formats

• Data obtained via APIs is sometimes limiting

Final Thoughts

• Allows experimentation

• Users need not worry about fetching data in the

right form

• Frequently updated datasets

• Helps in understanding relationships

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Twitter:@dataweavein Facebook:DataWeave E-mail:karthik@dataweave.in