As with most companies, Polycom works hard to continually improve our products.  With that comes changes in Polycom's software including in our APIs. (What is an API?  An API or Application Programming Interface can be thought of as an agreement provided by one piece of computer software to another.  If you ask me "X", then I will respond with "Y" in a specific format.) 

Polycom works to maintain both forwards and backwards compatability with our APIs, so a change in our software doesn't change the response back to your software-- we try not to break the "agreement". 

In order to write software that will work after upgrades, Polycom has released Best Practices to Prevent Versioning Issues in the Polycom RealPresence Platform API Guide  (see http://bit.ly/1shsRyN) 

For Example: Best Practices to Prevent Versioning Issues (from Page 25):

Developers using the API should use the following practices, to minimize software versioning related issues

and protect against unintentional agent upgrades:

• Use an XML parser that respects extension points in the schema, and ignores attributes that it does not understand at these points.
• Include the 'Content-Type' HTTP header in every request that includes an XML document.
• Include the 'Accept' HTTP header in every request that expects an XML document in response.
• Failure to include an 'Accept' header may result in a random, incompatible version being sent in a response. 

To determine whether a version is compatible, refer to the documentation for the API methods, which specifies what representations are possible as returned values.

• As part of the upgrade process for Polycom products, check the release notes for content types that are no longer supported. If there are any, make sure that they are not used in the client application

Polycom is committed to maintaining both forward and backward compatibility of the API where possible.  Typically, the API will support both the old and new content types when incompatible differences occur.

• API clients written to use an old version of the API may continue to do so, by specifying the old content type.
• API clients written to use the new version of the API may do so by specifying the new content type.

In some relatively rare cases, it may simply be impossible to support the old content type. In these cases, the release notes for the new version of the API will include a list of the content types that are no longer supported.

Want to learn more about what Polycom APIs can do?  Join the Polycom Developer Community or read the Polycom RealPresence Platform API Guide

Polycom has a long history of promoting integration through delivering and supporting independent technology partners developing products using our documented API extensions.  We encourage our Technology Partners and others to build new solutions that leverage Polycom technologies in new or unique ways.  Two examples (of many) are: 

• VTC-uRemote
• RAMP MediaCloud

Developer Gary Miyakawa, Inc. has built several tools that make the video conference admin's life easier.  The latest, VTC-uRemote, is a java based tool for simulating the Polycom Group Series/HDX/VSX Video Conferencing Systems' remote control through a single application.  Entering an endpoint's IP address (and password, if required) gives you full "remote" control of the endpoint, just like you were in the room, from a single application. Learn more & download here from Gary Miyakawa, Inc or follow  @garymiyakawa on Twitter.

RAMP MediaCloud™ for Enterprise works together with Polycom's RealPresence Media Manager to allows users to more easily manage, find, share, and interact with all enterprise video content. After recording content, with Media Manager, it is automatically sent to RAMP to generates text transcripts and metadata from the recording.  It's then placed back in Media Manager where the metadata produced enable key word search within videos.  Learn more here or see the RAMP Media website www.ramp.com/ or @rampinc on Twitter.

Are you inspired yet?  See code samples and demo applications like "VMR Passcode Management" from people like @vperrin (also check out his helpful blog for info on APIs).  

See all the tools from @GaryMiyakawa like VTC-Call Stream Inspection, VTC-Info, VTC-Monitor and more (you'll also find him helpful in the forums). 

See more solutions in the Technology Partners Community or try the Polycom Technology Partner Locator.  

Did you see who won last year's App Developer Contest?

Have a favorite app?  Add it to the comments!