The Essbase Application Programming Interface or API, is a programmatic interface between your client or your application server and the Essbase analytic server. The Essbase analytic server manages the transfer of data between client and analytic server or the application server and analytic server over your network.
Using programs coded by you to make calls to functions within the Essbase API, data or results are returned from the Essbase servers you are connected to. The Essbase API contains much of the same functionality that the Essbase software included with your system contains.
Typically you don't need to be concerned with where the physical Essbase server machine is located on the network when writing a program that uses API calls. Locating the server and transferring the data, is all handled by the API through TCP/IP connections.
