Best Practice - API Consumer Client Behavior

Recommendation

API consuming clients should be developed to minimize unnecessary transactions and use the feature of the API designed to enable this.

Reasoning

Many performance issues in the Ed-Fi ecosystem can be traced back to improper usage patterns of the Ed-Fi API. ​ The API is a shared resource, and these practices help minimize client API usage​ by consuming clients.

Implementation

• Do not use the Ed-Fi API as an application backend​.

• For clients retrieving data from the ODS/API, use Change Queries​ to gather deltas in the data. Follow Using the Changed Record Queries (v 6.1)  ​

• Demonstrate and document the use of paging to improve performance​. Follow patterns described in Improving Paging Performance on Large API Resources