Connector
A pre-built integration component that enables applications to communicate with external systems, handling authentication and data formatting.
In-Depth Explanation
A connector is a pre-built component that facilitates integration between applications and external systems. Connectors handle the complexity of API calls, authentication, and data transformation, making integrations faster to implement.
Connector components:
- Authentication handling: Manages credentials and tokens
- API abstraction: Simplifies API interactions
- Data mapping: Transforms data formats
- Error handling: Manages failures gracefully
- Rate limiting: Respects API limits
Connector types:
- Source connectors: Extract data from systems
- Destination connectors: Load data to systems
- Bidirectional: Both read and write
- Streaming: Real-time data flow
Common connector ecosystems:
- Zapier (2000+ app connectors)
- Make (Integromat)
- Airbyte (data integration)
- Fivetran (data pipelines)
- Power Automate
Business Context
Pre-built connectors reduce integration time from weeks to hours, enabling faster digital transformation and reducing development costs.
How Clever Ops Uses This
We leverage pre-built connectors for Australian business integrations where available, building custom connectors only when necessary.
Example Use Case
"Using a Salesforce connector in an integration platform to sync customer data to a data warehouse without writing custom API code."