MachineShop
API-based Services to Interact with Connected Devices

With the Internet of Things (IoT) increasingly becoming a reality, it is imperative for businesses to continually adopt the best-of-breed technology and practices. Organizations are still at crossroads when it comes to creating and managing APIs that relate to the interaction with connected devices and data sources. “Because connected devices are not always linked, communicating, and available, it takes a creative approach to enable them through APIs,” begins Michael Campbell, co-founder, president and CEO, MachineShop. Founded in 2012, MachineShop takes an API-centric approach to address the enterprise IoT issues. “Organizations are not realizing that there is no one size fits all solution,” says Campbell. “This relates not only to how APIs are created, deployed, shared, and monetized but also to the types of underlying data sources and services exposed through APIs,” he adds. Many devices typically have complex Software Development Kits (SDKs) and documentation that require deep technical expertise to implement. MachineShop transforms this complexity into an approach that allows API-based interaction with connected data sources, relevant events, and business processes.

MachineShop is an IoT middleware company that allows enterprises to create custom API endpoints for easy integration to applications using industry-standard RESTful API's. “We understand the need to further simplify and standardize the way REST APIs are created, documented, and shared with developers,” says Campbell. MachineShop has recently adopted the powerful interface, Swagger, to build their representation framework and language for APIs. “We believe that Swagger will evolve to meet the needs of programmers and service providers in the future,” explains Campbell. MachineShop’s customers have a range of deployment requirements from public cloud, private cloud, and on-premise and hybrid approaches. Leveraging the underlying technology, customers can apply device management APIs to everything from alarm systems to telematics devices. This can create business rules for a large range of events using the same basic services and APIs.

MachineShop has been providing full-fledged API services to the industries since its inception. For instance, one of their clients, a security firm required a central dashboard through which it could establish reliable communications with the security systems and surveillance cameras. To provide this, the client worked with MachineShop to create SecureStat, an online security-management service that the company offers to its banking customers on a subscription basis. Also, the client required to manage a range of back-end applications, as well as data coming from those systems, such as collecting alarm logs and service records. At the same time, they had to respond to issues with hardware devices deployed inside or outside the facilities. SecureStat was able to translate all of the data collected from the various systems, sensors, and devices deployed across their enterprise. It then normalized the information from a range of systems into a common, actionable format in a single system, to enable customers to meet their growing data needs.

We understand the need to further simplify and standardize the way REST APIs are created, documented, and shared with developers

MachineShop is focused on being the market-leading provider of API-based services for the connected world. “We see API Management as part of a larger data and systems integration challenge, so we focus on the API-fication of IoT,” illustrates Campbell. The company shows tenacity for staying relevant, delivering technology and services to achieve business objectives and satisfy customers. “We maintain strong communication with our customers, so as to improve our services and offer additional functionality to meet their growing business needs,” concludes Campbell.