Technopedia API: Getting Started

Overview

Technopedia API offers easy access to the data in the Technopedia catalog. The API exists on top of Technopedia in BDNA’s cloud infrastructure, and is easy accessible via http. This document assumes the end user is familiar with web services and API methodologies. New data in Technopedia is updated nightly and made available via the API shortly after the update.


Details

Technopedia Architecture

Technopedia API is based on REST-ful web service architecture. Each table in the Technopedia catalog has a unique endpoint (see Table 1 below). Additional endpoints have also been created that provide the software and hardware information in a flattened structure.

Response Formats

Each endpoint provides data in 4 response formats:

The default response format is JSON.

The response format is defined in the request, as detailed below.

Authentication

Authentication to Technopedia API is based on a username and API key. The username and API key must be passed as an HTTP Authorization header.

The authorization header must be formatted as follows:

                    Authorization: apikey :
                

Example query:

                    curl -H 'Authorization: apikey foo:19765acd5546655c1a2888' 
                    'https://api.technopedia.com/api/v1/manufacturer/?format=json'
                

Delta Update

Each endpoint has a parameter “last_download_date”. The value for this parameter must be in the format YYYY -MM-DD. This parameter causes the endpoint to return the delta (new/modified) data since that date.

Example query:

                    'https://api.technopedia.com/api/v1/manufacturer/?last_download_date=2013-12-01'
                

The above query would return all manufacturers added or modified since 2013-12-01.

Pagination

Technopedia API makes it easy for users to paginate objects using limit and offset. The default pagination values are limit=20 and offset=0.

Example query: this will return 50 objects at a time

                     'https://api.technopedia.com/api/v1/manufacturer/?limit=50&offset=0&format=json’
                

Endpoints

A complete list of all current endpoints is available at https://api.technopedia.com/api/v1/?format=json. Table 1 below includes the endpoints as of the writing of this document

Endpoint Schema

Each endpoint’s schema can be viewed by typing “schema” after the endpoint URL. See example- https://api.technopedia.com/api/v1/manufacturer/schema/?format=json. This will provide the full schema as well as the filtering meta-data.

Performance

For best API performance, we recommend the pagination limit to be below 500.

Default settings

The following are the default settings that apply to all endpoints.


For more information on the capabilities of the Technopedia API, please visit either of the following: