Efficient access to assets & configuration items via API

 

Access to information about the entire IT landscape as part of reporting, pipeline and control tasks is currently not possible in many companies, or only possible with a great deal of effort. The Versio.io asset & configuration item inventory, including the Application Programming Interface (API) available to customers, solves this challenge. At its core are the ready-made importers for inventorying data from third-party systems. The following graphic shows the large number of available importers and how they store the data in the central asset & configuration item inventory. This means that all inventory data is available to the customer via a single API.

Figure: Versio.io asset & configuration item inventory

 

In the following three points, I would like to explain why and how customers can access their data more efficiently with Versio.io:

• A single authentication process - When integrating third-party systems, authentication must first be carried out in most cases. In practice, each third-party provider uses different procedures (user plus password, API token, API token renewed cyclically) and other special features. The Versio.io Asset & Configuration Item Importer has already implemented this integration effort. This allows customers to access all inventory data centralised in Versio.io with a token-based standard procedure.
• A single API - In our experience, third-party API implementations do not always adhere to standards. For example, when implementing the Versio.io Asset & Configuration Item Importer, the Versio.io development team has to invest more time in research to accurately query the data and, if necessary, correct errors in the API implementation. In addition, each third-party API is structurally individual, which increases the integration effort for customers. Versio.io offers a single API for querying asset & configuration items from all third-party providers and the Versio.io OneImporter. The Versio.io API is 100% compliant with REST API standards, is internally consistent and can be learnt and used within 10 minutes.
• High-performance API queries - Our experience in implementing third-party integrations shows that data queries via API, Secure Socket Shell (SSH) or Command Line Interface (CLI) can be very performant. It can take anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes to receive a response from the third-party system. For API queries via the central Versio.io Asset & Configuration Item Inventory, the Versio.io platform always guarantees a high performance of less than 200 ms. This means that customers can always query asset & configuration item data in real time within their pipelines or as part of reporting.

The Versio.io approach drastically minimises the integration effort required to access asset & configuration items for customers and is a logical step towards the digitalisation of IT itself.

 

Keywords

Asset

 

Configuration item

 

Inventory

 

Configuration management database

 

CMDB

 

Application programming interface

 

API