Extract from Jim Gill’s article “Google Ediscovery Best Practices: Drive API vs. Vault”
Connecting to an organization’s various enterprise data sources is a primary goal for any ediscovery solution. After all, how can you identify, preserve, and analyze Electronically Stored Information (ESI) if you can’t connect to it?
When evaluating an ediscovery solution, one of the first things you might look at is how it might connect with your organization’s data. One of the most common answers will be, “Oh there’s an API” or Application Programming Interface. APIs share information with an outside program while keeping internal details of its system hidden.
But just because an API is available, doesn’t mean it may be suited for the task at hand. Some APIs are limited in the data and metadata they capture. So even if there is an API and a solution can connect to it, doesn’t mean you’ll get what you need.
In other cases, there may be more than one API available for a particular data source, where one may be more effective for a particular use case than another. A good example of this is with Google Drive.
APIs For Google Drive
Google Drive has more than one API which can give 3rd party software access: Drive API and Google Vault.
