An introduction to TM1’s, OData compliant, REST API

Hubert Heijkers, STSM, Chief Architect TM1 Server and OData evangelist

Dusseldorf, April 27th 2016

TM1 REST API

Nothing was impossibleit was just hard, that’s presuming you knew what to use and how

Agenda

Introduction OData

Introduction TM1’s REST API

What makes this API different

Chatting with the server (Demo)

OpenAPI, OData goes OpenAPI, and so is TM1

Try it yourself using Swagger-UI (Demo)

References

3

Introducing OData

OData‘s vision is to make (open) data Consumable and Interoperable

Consumable meaning it is:

– Discoverable, Structured, Self-describing

– Navigable, arguably Human Readable and Programmable

Interoperable by:

– Using a common language to describe the data

– Using common conventions and semantics to query and navigate the data

– Representing the data using a common payload format

There needs to be a web-based API that programmers can use on any platform to

retrieve the minimum set of relevant data

4

Web API Practices

REST

– Popular style for creating, retrieving, modifying and deleting (CRUD) resources on

the web through common verbs

– Doesn’t provide interoperable

Doesn’t describe service and resources

Doesn’t define semantics

Doesn’t define a representation for the resources

JSON

– Popular format for data interchange

– Human readable, easy to parse

– Not sufficient for interoperability

Multiple ways to represent the same data

Not self describing

No facility for annotating raw data with important metadata5

OData

OData is a set of common conventions and best practices on top of REST and JSON for

well-designed, interoperable data access

Common metadata description language (CSDL)

– Human- and machine-readable consumer oriented data model

Common URL conventions

– Filter, Sort, Order, project, navigation, expansion

Common Semantics

– Paging, versioning, update semantics, extensibility, batching, functions and actions

JSON representation

– Payload description, count, type information, ids, etags

– Navigation, edit and media links

6

OData Adoption

7

OData – the best way to RESTAn open protocol for the creation and consumption of

query-able and interoperable RESTful APIs

Introducing TM1’s RESTful API

Introduced in TM1 10.2 RP2 (Q2 2014)

TM1’s first HTTP and JSON based API

Following the Open Data (OData) standard!

– Provides a machine readable description of the API, a.k.a. the metadata or CSDL

– Following all OData‘s URL Conventions

– Using the OData JSON Format for all its payloads

Exposing TM1 Server as a Service to it’s consumers

Making it easy to interact with TM1 from within any environment

Native support build into the TM1 server

9

Opening up TM1 to the massesis what we are really doing with this API

What makes this API different

Standards based

Cloud ready

Language independent

Support by a broad community

Overall easy of use

Better performance, especially over a WAN

Easing the integration of TM1 Server

GOAL: Everything you can do with TM1 Server you can do thru this API

11

DEMOLets have a chat with the server…

OpenAPI Initiative (OAI)

OAI focusses on a vendor neutral, RESTful, API Description Format

Based on the Swagger Specification

IBM is one of the founding members of the OAI consortium

IBM acquired StrongLoop to strengthen its position in this space

OData is aligning with OAI

– Sharing API definitions using a shared, JSON Schema based, format

– Allowing OData schemas to be expressed in Swagger (with extensions)

– Making OData services available in Swagger tooling, most notably Swagger-UI

13

TM1 EDM

DEMOInteracting with TM1’s REST API using the Swagger-UI…

What is the REST API being used for?

Traditional ‘consumers’

– Applications consuming purpose build TM1 models

Modelers/Modeling tools

– Creating and maintaining models

Applications/Application builders

– Purpose build applications using TM1 ‘under the covers’

Processes/automation

Development tool integration

– Change tracking

– ‘Projectize’ TM1 model development

16

REST API short term Road Map

Most recently we added:

– Transaction log support

– Message log support

– Support for deltas (read: change tracking in the server)

In future major/minor version(s):

– Alternate Hierarchy support

– Server Settings (Configured and Active)

– Logger Settings

– Cover remaining TM1 functionality currently lacking

– Adding support for faster data loads and extracts

– TI Process input and output redirection

– Everything else required to implement “TI as a Service”

17

What’s on the horizon for the REST API

Data as a Service

– Using the power of TM1 to drive an Entity Data Model

– Making the data IN a TM1 model available as an, OData compliant, service

– Allowing the data in TM1 to be queried as if it were a relational source

A ‘model definition language’?

– An agreed upon representation of a model that describes the model

Serviceability build in

– Support for high availability and fail-over

– These abilities would, apart from any related management, be opaque

18

The future is brightThe REST API is influencing the future of TM1, and only just started

References

TM1 SDK developerWorks Community

OData – the best way to REST

OASIS Open Data Protocol (OData) Technical Committee

OData Specification

– Part 1: Protocol

– Part 2: URL Conventions

– Part 3: Common Schema Definition Language (CSDL)

– OData JSON Format

OpenAPI Initiative

20

Questions

?Think of any more questions later?

Don’t hesitate to contact me or send an e-mail to hubert.heijkers@nl.ibm.com

21