Using Sample Code to Assist with Consuming StrikeIron Web Services

One of the key benefits of the various StrikeIron Web services products we make available is the ability to integrate a call to the Web service from within an enterprise application, a business process, a Web site or Web application, a mobile device, or with anything that has the ability to consume a SOAP or REST-based Web service (which is just about everything these days in the world of I.T.)

As a result of doing the simple integration to one of the services, all of the ongoing data updating, data maintenance and complexity of managing external data sources internally goes away as we take care of it from within our data centers. Depending on the data source and how often it changes, we do monthly, nightly, and sometimes real-time updates, and then provide access to those data sources via APIs that can be integrated into all sorts of applications supporting thousands of use cases.

For example, sales and use tax rates, the Do Not Call list, address verification, email verification, and even a global SMS service are all examples of some of these data sources and Web services we make available for easy integration.

For first-timers however, this is not always a matter of a few minutes like it is with experienced developers who can integrate all kinds of Web services and data sources in their sleep. The primary type of technical support inquiries we receive tend to be "How do I consume a StrikeIron Web service using [insert programming language here]?", or "How do we integrate StrikeIron within [insert development environment here]?" This is usually a result of a developer not having consumed any Web service in that particular language or environment before, not just a StrikeIron Web service, and he or she just needs a little help to get going.

To help overcome the learning curve, on each of our individual Web service pages we make sample code available (under "Technical Resources") with examples of consuming the given Web service from various programming languages. Also, I think you will find our technical support group (support@strikeiron.com) very knowledgeable and helpful if you need assistance beyond the sample code.

Taking a look at one of our Web services pages, you can see that for our US Address Verification Web Service that utilizes reference data from the United States Postal Service, we provide PHP5, C#, Java (Axis), and VB.NET sample code for the integration step.

Our online sales tax example also includes a Cold Fusion example. You can even find Ruby, Perl, Python, PHP4, and Flex examples on our site as well if you search the site using Google, Bing, or any other search engine using site only searches, such as "site:strikeiron.com perl" within Google.

Because of the consistency across all of our services (same interfaces, same authentication, same response codes, etc.) and the free trials we make available, it is very easy to interchange our various Web services within the sample code for a given programming language, especially since it is usually the passing of parameters that causes some difficulty in a language the first time out, regardless of what the parameters actually are.

Then we find that once a customer gets it going for the first service, rarely do they need help again. And that's the idea - we just work in the background while you go about focusing on your core business and not worrying about the time, cost, and energy associated with ongoing data updates.