When companies have massive volumes of information to deal with, it's challenging to make sense of it all. With information spread across the organization, gathering valuable insights to drive decision-making is near impossible. Bringing all of this information together in a consolidated platform helps support discovery, reporting, and analysis that is critical for defining business strategies. In the era of digital disruption, agility is key. According to Cindi Howson, research vice president at Gartner, “Unless your reporting is smart and agile, you’re behind. You’re a laggard.” Here are details on what is a MySQL API and how it is critical to remain agile.

Table of Contents

  1. What Is MySQL API?
  2. What Is the MySQL API Used for in ETL?
  3. What Are My SQL API Access Methods?How Integrate.io Can Help
  4. What Is the MySQL API Connection Method in Integrate.io?
  5. How Integrate.io Can Help

What Is MySQL API?

MySQL is an open-source database developed by Oracle. It is a multithreaded, multi-user, and robust relational database management system (RDBMS). They built the platform to handle storage for popular software stacks and to build powerful, data-driven business services.

It is a critical component of integration projects. As it provides the storage mechanism for housing information.

The API represents a set of libraries used to connect to the storage system. These libraries allow applications written in different programming languages to interact with the system.

What Is the MySQL API Used for in ETL?

Few companies rely on a single source of information. Much of that information is siloed across multiple systems. Merging it into a single view is critical to informed decision-making. ETL is the driving force behind an integration strategy. Using ETL to build your ETL pipeline comes with several benefits.

How MySQL Fits Into an ETL Pipeline

You can write data to or read data from the database. The ETL process for connecting to this platform is:

Extract

You can use a MySQL API to extract information from your business systems to load it into the database. Extraction is the first step in integrating systems.

Transform

Before information can be loaded into the target system, it must be cleansed, verified, sorted, standardized and more. 

Mark Chamberlain, Vice President of Product Development at ADP, says, “When it comes to data warehousing, more and more companies are now storing data, and they want that data to be good, they want it to be usable and provide value, and they don’t want the data to provide any inconsistencies from a results perspective. A lot of companies are now putting business logic into their ETL process to be able to go clean it up. It will also help with redundancies and will also help businesses understand their data better.”

Load

At this stage, the newly transformed information is loaded into MySQL. Once there, it is available for searching and analysis.

Benefits of Using MySQL for ETL

Single Point of View - Combining information from disparate systems makes it easy to analyze and visualize the information.

Historical Context - An ETL pipeline can collect information from legacy systems and integrate it with new systems. The result is that you can compare historical information with more recent information for analysis.

Efficiency and Productivity - Manual migrations are time-consuming, tedious, and prone to errors. ETL uses automation to simplify the process.

Integrate.io helps you create consolidated views of your information so you can realize cost efficiencies and productivity gains from using an ETL tool.

What Are My SQL API Access Methods?

Using the API allows you to connect your systems with speed, reliability, and cost-effectiveness. There are two main approaches to accessing the API.

Custom API

Some companies may choose to write custom API calls to the database. The platform supports APIs for developers to use when integrating information. A few of the common languages supported include:

PERL -The database provides the Perl DBI module for accessing the API. This allows developers to write Perl scripts to connect to the tool.

RUBY -MySQL offers two APIs for Ruby developers: MySQL/Ruby API and the Ruby/MySQL API.

TCL - Developers using TCL can use the MySQLtcl module to access the platform.

Pre-Built Connector

Many companies opt to build their pipelines using pre-built connectors. These integrations represent code blocks. These blocks can be combined in a workflow to build an entire pipeline.

Integrate.io provides a pre-built connector for accessing the database. The tool removes the need for you to spend hours building code to integrate your systems.

What Is the MySQL API Connection Method in Integrate.io?

The Integrate.io platform provides a platform to create and manage integrations to MySQL. The process is as follows:

Grant Integrate.io Access to MySQL

The first thing you’ll need to do is grant Integrate.io access to your MySQL account. You will need to create a user in MySQL that will be used to access the source.

Create a Connection

Next, you will need to create a connection to the database. A connection requires the database hostname, the database name, username, and password.

Create a Package

A package defines the information flows and workflow between systems. A data flow specifies the information to access, how to manipulate the information, and the output destination.

Configure a Workflow

Workflows define the interaction or dependencies between flows in the package. For example, you could run a workflow to run multiple flows in a particular sequence.

How Integrate.io Can Help

If you are looking for a robust tool to build integrations, Integrate.io fits the bill. It comes with hundreds of prebuilt connections for MySQL and a host of SaaS tools. It is a no-code/low-code tool that allows anyone without technical knowledge to build a pipeline.

Integrate.io’s platform is ideal for companies looking to expand their API catalog and take advantage of its data assets. Reach out to our team today for a free demo to try things out for yourself.