I'm working on a project that consists in an python script that get data from an API and calculate things based in this data. The goal is to get this calculated information to a website. I was thinking in doing something like running this code in the same server as the website host server and posting the data generated in a database, then the website would get the information from the database and display it in the website. However, the front-end developer that is working with me said that would be a better option to develop a REST Api that would return to the website the data calculated in the python script. Does it makes sense to develop an API that will only be used internally? Wouldn't it be another unnecessary factor of complexity, since the data could be calculated, stored and retrieved form the host server without any API?
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My overall goal is to be able to access public back-end databases via my own ad-hoc apps, in Python or JavaScript. This is data that is publicly available, but only via one-off searches.
More specifically, I'd like to access county property records, which are often a ArcGIS ESRI product.
For example, I'd like to access the every property's info attributes from http://cityview.baltimorecity.gov/cityview_D21/. I see in the code it uses ArcGIS and Data Dojo, though I do not know enough about these.
How would I begin accessing the script to call the whole database? Would this be a RESTful API? How would I know?
The best way to utilize the data you seek is via the server rest service. Looks like they have most of the data on that map available for use via https://geodata.baltimorecity.gov/egis/rest/services/. Depending on the capabilities they have enabled for the layer you can send queries etc. via esri's REST, JS, and Python APIs.
I need to connect Salesforce to an external database we have, and constantly keep both the database and salesforce updated in as close to real time as we can get. I have tired Google searching possible solutions, but nearly all of them have been outdated by over a year. Any ideas?
Thank You!
Depending on your exact scenario it is quite difficult to give you a proper answer.
However off the top of my head I would suggest two Salesforce products.
Salesforce Connect
https://www.salesforce.com/products/platform/products/salesforce-connect/
Salesforce Connect allows you to connect to various data sources and turn the tables / objects of that data source into a SObject. For example MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle etc. There are limitations and thus it would be better to talk to a Certified Architect about such an implementation.
Heroku Connect
https://www.heroku.com/connect
Heroku Connect allows you to connect a Heroku data source with a Salesforce Object. The sync is not immediate but there are quite a few customisations inside the product to make the sync as "live" as possible. There are limitations and thus it would be better to talk to a Certified Architect about such an implementation.
Salesforce Connect has limitations.. It's good for presenting data via the interface, but if you need to act on the data and report on the data it might not be the best bet.
For close to real time hand coded sync, look at the streaming API, or using Salesforce Platform Events.
If you want to use an ETL tool, my organization has had decent luck with DBAmp, which is a Sql add on product and fairly inexpensive as compared to a lot of ETL tools ($1625 annually.) http://www.forceamp.com/ We're able to replicate the entire SF database offline in SQL with DBAMP, push changes to the offline Sql copy and upsert changes. It's also a good backup solution via offline full data copy. We got very good support from them as well when we encountered challenges.
Hope this helps.
Not sure if you are syncing one object or multiple objects but there are a few options that you have.
You can try the salesforce provided features Salesforce Connect which allows you to view and update data from your external source In salesforce but there are limitations with reporting and other considerations you should consider.
If you make use of Heroku, Heroku Connect is your best bet
You can also use a middleware ESB solutions like MuleSoft which can orchestrate keeping data in sync across multiple data sources and do batch loads, but depending on how often changes you want to keep an eye out for api limits for inbound calls to salesforce.
You can roll your own solution where you can use Outbound Messages in workflow (or triggers that initiates an apex class that calls out, but that is more cumbersome and you have to do custom error handling and retry logic which you get for free using outbound messages) to send changes from salesforce to your homegrown service that writes to you database and have you homegrown solution write back to salesforce using the soap or rest api. That would probably take you some time to build. You would also still need to be aware of API limits depending on how many updates are made on the non salesforce side.
You crate a Canvas App which displays data from your DB in Salesforce as a Tab and hook it up via SSO so users are auto logged in. But again there would not be reporting, or any salesforce features that you can take advantage of.
But I really think that you should spend some time to determine what system is your source of truth because that would determine how the data should be synced. You should also investigate if you really need the sync to be realtime or near realtime, or if you can manage with something like an hourly true up on the system that is not the source of truth.
Does someone had any idea or created a webservice REST API in JSON format, which another remote server can fetch the data from.
Just need some beginner's lesson how to setup it on MQL4. My client needs this kind of service, which we will then output on a Wordpress as Widgets.
I want to know how our Wordpress server can access this. MQL4 had this WebRequest() function and planning to use it, but don't know where to start.
A number of options possible.
you can:
a. create web api call to save incoming data (ticks/candles) into db.
create mql4 script to send data via api.
or
b. create c++ / c# dll to save data into db.
separately create web api in language of your choice to read from db.
enter code here
or
c. save file into web accessible folder in format you like and read the file from word press.
I'm trying to build an API which can be used to update some master data in my app. It contains various drop-downs for city, country etc. Whenever I add new data in these drop-downs, I need the apps to hit this API once a day and get the latest data. Also, if the API is requested older data (from older apps), it should be able to return such data based on some date query parameter.
What's the best way to create such an API?
Also, the API needs to be RESTful and will be exposed to Android/iOS environments.
API should be able to return so based on some date query parameter.
You can use two columns created_at and updated_at in you tables schema. So how can this will useful for your situation:
Whenever some one hitting api without date parameter, you are return all data which are created before current time.
Whenever some one hitting api with date parameter then you can return data which are created before value of date parameter.
Obviously you have to write complete logic for this at server side
end.
Please explore one of the Mobile Backend as a Service (mBaaS) products for your long term needs.
Here are some players:
BaasBox: Open source backend
Backendless: Allows
developers to have an instant backend without writing server-side
code.
Apigee App Services: provides a lot of free storage, push notification, analytics etc.
Appcelerator: An BaaS targeted at the Enterprise audience.
For the short run you may want to try https://www.webscript.io/ to embed some quick javascript code to return the JSON response for you.
I would put a spin on #Santanu's suggestion of using BaaS. I would recommend using a BaaS during the development phase of your project.
When the iPhone and Android Apps have been developed and tested, replace the Baas-based server components with a in-house built RESTful server.
This approach has a couple of benefits. It lets you divide the effort into two distinct parts: the client changes to your product, and the building of your server component.
I assume your company's current expertise lies in App development, so it should be easier for you all to upgrade your applications to use the BaaS-based APIs.
It will also be much easier to reiterate and refine your data components and models using a mature BaaS server.
With Apps using data requests to populate the drop-downs from a BaaS-based RESTful API, and stable working data models and data sets hosted in the BaaS servers, it will be much faster to start building your own RESTful service.
When you run into issues, you will be confident they are in the server side code. You can run A/B tests with the same Apps against two versions of the server and ensure the client experience is the same.
You could continue to use the BaaS Server for rapid prototyping and developing API extensions.
Does anyone have experiences with programmatic exports of data in conjunction with BaaS providers like e.g. parse.com or StackMob?
I am aware that both providers (as far as I can tell from the marketing talk) offer a REST API which will allow for queries against the database, not only to be used by mobile clients but also by e.g. custom web apps.
I am also aware that both providers offer a manual export of data (parse.com via their web interface, StackMob via support).
But lets say I would like to dump all data nightly, so that I can import it into a reporting system for instance. Or maybe simply to have an up-to-date backup.
In this case, I would need a programmatic way to export/replicate the data stored in the backend. Manual exports are not an option for obvious reasons.
The REST APIs offered however seem to be designed for specific queries, not for mass reads (performance?). Let alone the pricing - I assume none of the providers would be happy about a nightly X Gigabyte data export via their REST API, so their probably will be a price tag.
I just couldn't find any specific information on this topic so far, so I was wondering if anyone else has already gone through this. Also, any suggestions on StackMob/parse alternatives are welcome, especially if related to the data export topic.
Cheers, Alex
Did you see the section of the Parse REST API on Batch operations? Batch operations reduce the number of API calls needed to grab data so that you are not using a call for every row you retrieve. Keep in mind that there is still a limit (the default is 100, but you can set it to a maximum of 1000). That means you are still limited to pulling down 1000 rows per API call.
I can't comment on StackMob because I haven't used it. At my present job, we are using Parse and we wrote a C# app which compares the data in a Parse class with a SQL table and pulls down any changes.