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Last updated: May 2026 Stateful applications remember information about previous client interactions. Stateless applications treat every request as independent — no memory between calls. The choice between these two designs shapes how an application scales, how it handles failures, and increasingly how AI agents consume it.

RESTful APIs and microservices solve different problems — REST is a style of API design, microservices is a pattern for structuring an application — but they work together so often that they're frequently confused. Most production microservices architectures use REST as the default communication mechanism between services, while plenty of monolithic applications also expose RESTful APIs to external clients.

Last updated: May 2026 An Oracle MCP server is a service that exposes Oracle Database data as tools an AI agent can call through the Model Context Protocol (MCP). Rather than handing an LLM direct credentials to a database holding ERP, financial, or healthcare records, you put an MCP server between the agent and Oracle.

Last updated: May 2026 A Snowflake MCP server is a service that exposes Snowflake warehouses as tools an AI agent can call through the Model Context Protocol (MCP). It sits between AI clients like Claude or ChatGPT and your Snowflake data, translating discoverable tool calls into governed SQL — with row access policies, dynamic data masking, query budgets, and audit logging applied automatically.

Last updated: May 2026 A PostgreSQL MCP server is a service that exposes PostgreSQL databases as tools an AI agent can call through the Model Context Protocol (MCP). Rather than giving an LLM direct database credentials, you put an MCP server between the agent and the database. The agent discovers what queries it can run, calls them as named tools, and the MCP server translates those calls into safe, governed SQL against PostgreSQL.

Last Updated: May 2026 Your API documentation is just as important as your API itself. It defines how easy it is for users to learn, understand, and use your open-source or paid product. In this post, DreamFactory highlights eight of the best API documentation examples from well-known tools. These examples can serve as inspiration for creating effective, developer-friendly API documentation.

API managers are often used to expose REST APIs to an internal or external group of developers. An internal group of enterprise developers might use a catalog of API services as a starting point for software development projects. An external group of partners might use the APIs for integration with their backend systems. In some cases, partners might use the APIs to purchase goods, services, or information.

Last Updated: May 2026 Asking the right questions when building an API for AI systems is critical, especially when updates risk breaking existing integrations. Here's the deal: API versioning ensures your AI workflows stay stable while introducing new features. By supporting multiple API versions, you can test updates, maintain compatibility, and avoid disruptions.

Last Updated: May 2026 Oracle API Gateway (OAG), the product that grew out of Oracle's 2012 acquisition of Vordel, has been on a long deprecation path. With Oracle steering customers away from on-premises OAG and toward newer cloud-based offerings, technical decision makers are facing a familiar question: stay on a product without a future, or pick a replacement that fits where the business is actually going?

Last updated: May 2026 An API (Application Programming Interface) is a set of rules and definitions that lets one software system request data or services from another. APIs are the connective tissue of modern software — every time a mobile app shows live data, a website logs you in with Google, or a SaaS tool talks to your CRM, an API is doing the work in the background.