Create API and Online API Documentation For Website

We need an experienced developer or development team to create a full API and all associated online API documentation.? ? We have a number of websites right now that are powered by our data, but we have to host them on our server and can't let those companies actually see the code to their own website.? However, building an API will allow us to build websites for our customers that rely on ou underlying data,? but allow those websites to reside outside of our own network. The data right now is simply in a database, in our case, MSSQL Server 2000 Enterprise edition.? The API should be built in such a way that it will return data from the underlying database to the web without exposing the database itself, using different calls and functions common to APIs. There are about 30 different functions that will need to be created for different API features. The API should support both XML and JSON, and each function should support some basic amount of paralellization (so that people don't have to make large numbers of separate calls). The API will need to use a key-based system? so that each call is authenticated as a registered user.? The API should also keep track of how many calls each registered user has made.? Integrated with both of these, the API should have good error handling, so if a user's key changes (if they lost their original key or something like that) errors will show until they are using the correct credentials again. We already have a server available for this task, located at: [http://api.[ourserver].com][1] You will need to create full online documentation.? We would like the API to be easy to follow, such as these: <[login to view URL]> <[login to view URL]> <[login to view URL]> Documentation needs to show code examples in PHP, ASP, and other common web languages (as many as you know well). And please make the documentation extremely simple since a lot of non-technical users (or at least lightly technical users, such as those who know HTML but not a lot of other languages)? might be trying to build applications using our system. ## Deliverables Database is MSSQL Server 2000 Enterprise.? ? Webserver is IIS 6 (must work with IIS but be as portable as possible).? ? PHP is installed on the server. Once coder is chosen, we will let you know what the 30 different functions will be (the calls to the server) that return data.? You will also be given all of the appropriate table/fields structures to the database, so I suppose all you will need to do is make the appropriate queries to the database, and then use the API to return the proper data. API should be as flexible as possible.? ? To clarify, you are creating the API itself from data that we have in a database,? not using? some existing API.? We are creating the data platform itself? with this project.