VMware VCLOUD API 1.0 - TECHNICAL NOTE, Programming Manual

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VMware, Inc. 13
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The VMware vCloud API provides support for developers who are building interactive clients of VMware
Cloud Director using a RESTful application development style. vCloud API clients and servers communicate
over HTTP, exchanging representations of vCloud objects. These representations take the form of XML
elements. HTTP GET requests are used to retrieve the current representation of an object, HTTP POST and
PUT requests are used to create or modify an object, and HTTP DELETE requests are typically used to delete
an object.
This chapter introduces the vCloud API and includes the following topics:

“vCloud Object Taxonomy” on page 13

“Objects, References, and Representations” on page 15

“Links and Link Relations” on page 15

“vCloud Client Workflow Overview” on page 17

“About the Examples” on page 19
vCloud Object Taxonomy
The vCloud API defines a set of objects common to cloud computing environments. Figure 1 ‐ 1 illustrates the
principal object types.
vCloud Organizations
A vCloud contains one or more organizations. A vCloud organization is a unit of administration for a
collection of users, groups, and computing resources. Users authenticate at the organization level, supplying
credentials established by an organization administrator when the user was created or imported.
vCloud Users and Groups
An organization can contain an arbitrary number of users and groups. Users can be created by the
organization administrator or imported from a directory service such as LDAP. Groups must be imported
from the directory service. Permissions within an organization are controlled through the assignment of rights
and roles to users and groups.
vCloud Networks
An organization can be provisioned with one or more networks. These organization networks can be
configured to provide services such as DHCP, NAT, and firewalls.
Introducing the VMware vCloud API
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