[Libcloud-list] API XML and Client Examples

[Bob McWhirter]

Howdy guys--

I've made some good progress on the API, and Hugh suggested I punt  
some examples to the list.

First, we have "Flavors" which denote types of VM that can be spun up,  
with their capabilities:

<flavor href="http://localhost:3000/api/flavors/m1-large">
     <id>m1-large</id>
     <memory>7.5</memory>
     <storage>850</storage>
     <architecture>x86_64</architecture>
   </flavor>

Next, we have images (templates in RHEV-M terminology):

<image href="http://localhost:3000/api/images/img1">
     <id>img1</id>
     <description>Fedora 10</description>
     <owner_id>fedoraproject</owner_id>
     <architecture>x86_64</architecture>
   </image>

From there we can spin up instances, actual running VMs based upon an  
image:

<instance href="http://localhost:3000/api/instances/inst1">
     <id>inst1</id>
     <public-address>img3.inst1.public.com</public-address>
     <image>http://localhost:3000/api/images/img3</image>
     <private-address>img3.inst1.private.com</private-address>
     <state>RUNNING</state>
     <owner_id>mockuser</owner_id>
     <flavor>http://localhost:3000/api/flavors/m1-small</flavor>
   </instance>

Storage volumes and snapshots are still works-in-progress.

The whole API is based upon discovery from a root URL, which gives  
entry-points into the sub-collections.

<api version="1.0">
     <link rel="flavors">http://localhost:3000/api/flavors</link>
     <link rel="images">http://localhost:3000/api/images</link>
     <link rel="instances">http://localhost:3000/api/instances</link>
     <link rel="storage_volumes">http://localhost:3000/api/storage/volumes 
</link>
     <link rel="storage_snapshots">http://localhost:3000/api/storage/snapshots 
</link>
</api>

I'm writing a Ruby client library also, which tries to be easy to use,  
and exposes a rich object model to the caller, with navigable and lazy- 
loaded references between

it "should allow navigation from instance to image" do
     DeltaCloud.new( API_NAME, API_PASSWORD, API_URL ) do |client|
       instances = client.instances
       instances.should_not be_empty
       instance = instances.first
       instance.image.should_not be_nil
       instance.image.description.should_not be_nil
       instance.image.description.should be_a(String)
     end
   end

Models are defined here:

http://github.com/bobmcwhirter/deltacloud-client-ruby/blob/master/lib/models...

For instance, instance:

http://github.com/bobmcwhirter/deltacloud-client-ruby/blob/master/lib/models...

I'm also hacking together a "mock" driver, so that even folks without  
EC2 access can fire up a driver to test against.  This is still a work- 
in-progress also (isn't everything?)

-Bob