May 27th, 2008
API Updated
Since we first unveiled the API, we have had excellent feedback and suggestions from many of our users. The first release only had support for DNS zones and records, which, as our clamoring customers let us know, was not enough!
So today, I am pleased to announce version 1.3 of the API which includes support for creating, rebooting, and rebuilding Slices. This will allow for quick and easy deployment, taking us another step in the direction of user-specified automation.
This is the first step to adding Slices to the API, which brings along several caveats:
- Slices cannot be deleted using the API
- OS Images available are currently only public images; you cannot yet build or rebuild from backups
Also note that the charges for new Slices are prorated the same as in the SliceManager.
The future of the API will is dependent on the feedback we receive; What is most important to you? Please let us know how we can improve our service, and we will do our best to make it possible.
May 27th, 2008 at 08:38 PM Barry
I think being able to deploy based on a specific image would be really helpful, or you could take the rightscale approach and let us set up scripts somewhere that can be run upon boot to install software and get things set up.
May 27th, 2008 at 09:49 PM Sam
This is a nice step in the right direction. But I’m not sure how useful it is to automate the creation of slices from base OS images. In order to use the API for dynamic scaling purposes, for example, one needs:
1. the ability to create slices from application-specific images (web server, load balancer, database slave, etc.) created by the accountholder
2. the ability to designate a “first boot” script to get the image customized for its specific role or slot
May 27th, 2008 at 10:28 PM Lex
Very nice! As a smallish user, I probably won’t be making use of these new functions, but it’s cool to see that they’re there. I’d like the ability to check statistics via the API, specifically bandwidth. I know I can track it inside my slice, but trying to handle that over reboots starts to get a little hairy.
May 28th, 2008 at 08:51 PM Barry
I agree with Sam – the ability to create custom slice images or create a slice based on a stored backup would be fantastic.
May 29th, 2008 at 08:05 AM Alex Morega
The API is really nice, I’d love to find an excuse to use it :)
One caveat: there seems to be no safety net against creating lots of slices and being billed lots of money. Programmers make mistakes, and this one looks like it could be very costly.
May 29th, 2008 at 05:24 PM Fred
This is great news, now I just have to figure out how to implement the API!
Alex: I had a script accidentally autorenew a few hundred domain names, twice, that was expensive :)