API: Integrating Tools with Python

In today’s technology market, there are tools for every type of need. Some are similar, yet possess different characteristics. Often, there is a great difficulty in integrating one tool with another when there is no native support. What should be done in this situation? Give up and look for another tool? That is certainly not the ideal decision.

In this article, we will talk about APIs and use the Python language as a practical example. With it, it is possible to solve most of the integration problems existing in the market today. But how?

API (Application Programming Interface)

Most tools have an Application Programming Interface (API), where it is possible to fetch, edit, create, or delete data within the tool using two methods known as POST and GET via HTTP and HTTPS protocols.

In most cases, to connect to an API, it is necessary to have a username and password, a token, or an access key—all generated or created by the tool itself.

How does Python fit in?

When creating an integration with Python, you can use the requests library to make a request to the tool’s API through GET (when fetching data) or POST (when sending information for the tool to take an action).

Take a look at this example:

# importing requests library
import requests

# retrieving articles from the PLOS platform with titles containing the string “DNA”
article_list = requests.get(‘http://api.plos.org/search?q=title:DNA’)

# displaying retrieved data in text format
print(article_list.text)

In this way, with a simple Python script, we can fetch data from one tool and send it to another using POST. Several integrations have already been created this way by us, Edgers. Here are a few cases:

• Integration of VMware Carbon Black with SMAX and Power BI;
• Integration of Nessus with Power BI;
• Integration of Zabbix with HP Service Manager and SMAX;
• Integration of Zabbix with Ansible Tower.

By integrating these tools, it is possible to generate security alert reports, execute actions automatically if a trigger is activated, and much more.