AWS launches Data Exchange for APIs to update changing data automatically

Developers often build machine learning models with the help of a third-party data set, which they add to their model, and they're done. But data isn't always static. That means building some sort of pipeline to collect the data at regular intervals, creating extra work.

Today at AWS re:Invent in Las Vegas, the company announced the AWS Data Exchange for APIs, a new tool that updates changing third-party APIs automatically, removing the need for building the updating mechanism.

AWS's Alex Casalboni writing in a company blog post pointed out that by using an API, data scientists can get an answer to a specific question with changing information like a stock price quickly, eliminating the need for the pipeline. That's great for a single API, but if you're using multiple APIs, that creates a new set of problems around communication, authentication and governance related to the APIs.

That's where AWS Data Exchange for APIs comes in to help solve those issues. "Today, I’m happy to announce the general availability of AWS Data Exchange for APIs, a new capability that lets you find, subscribe to, and use third-party APIs with a consistent access using AWS SDKs, as well as consistent AWS-native authentication and governance," Casalboni wrote in the blog post.

The key part here is that this is AWS-specific like many tools announced this week. If you are building your application or data model on top of AWS, this tool lets you access AWS software development kits (SDKs) and use AWS authentication and governance tooling to access and update third party APIs in this automated way.

Those third-party data providers get something here too. By listing their APIs in the Data Exchange catalog, more developers can see and use their data sources. "As a data provider, you make your API discoverable by millions of AWS customers by listing it in the AWS Data Exchange catalog using an OpenAPI specification and fronting it with an Amazon API Gateway endpoint," Casalboni explained.

Third party providers offering data through the data exchange include Variety Business Intelligence, IMDb and Foursquare, among many others. The tool is available for both developers and API providers starting today.