VMware, Inc. 13
1
TheVMwarevCloudAPIprovidessupportfordeveloperswhoarebuildinginteractiveclientsofVMware
CloudDirectorusingaRESTfulapplicationdevelopmentstyle.vCloudAPIclientsandserverscommunicate
overHTTP,exchangingrepresentationsofvCloudobjects.TheserepresentationstaketheformofXML
elements.HTTPGETrequestsareusedtoretrieve
thecurrentrepresentationofanobject,HTTPPOSTand
PUTrequestsareusedtocreateormodifyanobject,andHTTPDELETErequestsaretypicallyusedtodelete
anobject.
ThischapterintroducesthevCloudAPIandincludesthefollowingtopics:
“vCloudObjectTaxonomy”onpage 13
“Objects,References,andRepresentations”onpage 15
“LinksandLinkRelations”onpage 15
“vCloudClientWorkflowOverview”onpage 17
“A b o u t theExamples”onpage 19
vCloud Object Taxonomy
ThevCloudAPIdefinesasetofobjectscommontocloudcomputingenvironments.Figure 1‐1illustratesthe
principalobjecttypes.
vCloud Organizations
AvCloudcontainsoneormoreorganizations.AvCloudorganizationisaunitofadministrationfora
collectionofusers,groups,andcomputingresources.Usersauthenticateattheorganizationlevel,supplying
credentialsestablishedbyanorganizationadministratorwhentheuserwascreatedorimported.
vCloud Users and Groups
Anorganizationcancontainanarbitrarynumberofusersandgroups.Userscanbecreatedbythe
organizationadministratororimportedfromadirectoryservicesuchasLDAP.Groupsmustbeimported
fromthedirectoryservice.Permissionswithinanorganizationarecontrolledthroughtheassignmentofrights
androlestousers
andgroups.
vCloud Networks
Anorganizationcanbeprovisionedwithoneormorenetworks.Theseorganizationnetworkscanbe
configuredtoprovideservicessuchasDHCP,NAT,andfirewalls.
Introducing the VMware vCloud API
1