Microsoft Azure has grown so much over the years that keeping track of all its features and tools can be overwhelming. One area that’s evolving fast is the way developers connect to and manage data across different platforms. Microsoft has introduced a new tool called Data API Builder (DAB) that makes building and using APIs for various databases much easier and more flexible.

What is the Data API Builder?

The Data API Builder, or DAB, is a free tool from Microsoft that helps you create APIs for your databases. It supports popular data sources like MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, and even Azure’s own Cosmos DB. You can run it anywhere you want — on your own servers, in the cloud, or even on other cloud providers. Because it’s containerized, it works with Docker or Podman, making deployment simple.

DAB can generate REST or GraphQL APIs, which are common ways to interact with web services. This means you can easily connect your applications to your databases without writing a lot of custom code. It also includes features like OAuth2 authentication and automatic documentation with OpenAPI, so you can generate client libraries easily.

Getting Started with DAB

Starting with DAB is straightforward. You begin by installing its .NET CLI tool, which is used to create and configure your API. You’ll need to have .NET 8 installed, along with Docker or Podman. Once you’ve installed the CLI via NuGet, you can initialize your project by setting up your database connection. This involves providing details like your server address, username, password, and database name.

Next, you add the tables or entities you want to expose through the API. The CLI offers commands to add entities, export configurations, and validate your setup. When you’re ready, you run the service in a Docker container, which opens an API endpoint for your database.

Once running, you can test your API by visiting the endpoint URI. If you append “/api/tablename” to it, you can access data from specific tables. Adding “/swagger” to the URI shows the OpenAPI documentation, which helps you see what operations are available and how to use them in your code.

Deploying and Using Your Data APIs

Deploying your API to Azure is simple with the Azure Developer CLI. It can generate the necessary infrastructure code, like Bicep templates, to set everything up automatically. Since DAB runs inside a Docker container, the deployment process involves uploading your configurations and setting up the related Azure services, such as an Azure Container App and a database.

Once deployed, your API is ready to be integrated into your applications. Because it’s built on REST principles, you can use standard HTTP methods like GET, POST, PUT, and DELETE to perform CRUD operations — create, read, update, delete — on your data. Results come back as JSON, and you can use primary keys or query parameters to fetch specific records or filter data, making your data access efficient.

There are some limitations depending on the database system and its version. For example, older versions of PostgreSQL, MySQL, or SQL Server might not support all features. Microsoft keeps track of these supported versions, ensuring you know what’s compatible.

To secure your API, you can add HTTPS support by providing SSL certificates. Alternatively, using a reverse proxy like YARP can handle HTTPS connections for you, simplifying security management. This setup allows your API to be both accessible and safe, without complicated reconfigurations.

Why Use the Data API Builder?

Microsoft’s DAB is a significant step toward making database access more uniform and portable. By providing a single API layer that works across multiple databases and cloud environments, developers can switch storage backends without rewriting their client code. This flexibility is especially useful in modern cloud-native development, where infrastructure might change frequently.

The recent updates, including the 1.6 release, show that Microsoft is committed to maintaining and improving DAB. It’s an example of how Azure tools are becoming more developer-friendly, helping build scalable, cross-platform applications with less hassle. Whether you’re working on a small project or a large enterprise system, DAB offers a powerful way to manage data consistently across different environments.

Inspired by

• https://www.infoworld.com/article/4066410/bring-your-data-to-your-code-with-azures-data-api-builder.html

Sources

• gmpg.org
• github.com
• microsoft.com
• microsoft.com
• microsoft.com