API Getting Started Guide

From GoGrid

The GoGrid API is our proprietary API to allow GoGrid developers, admins, and users to programmatically access the functions that are available through our UI.

The API is a REST-like API meaning all API calls are submitted as HTTP GET or POST requests.

Why a REST-like Query API?

Because they are easy to use! We didn't want to build a cumbersome or obtuse API. You don't need to know what WSDL, CORBA, or RMI mean to use it. Our API offers extreme flexibity and is language agnostic. It can easily be called from Java, PHP, Ruby, Python, C#, or even a shell script.

If you are familiar with basic HTML knowledge and have used a browser, you can understand how the API works!

Background: REST-like Query APIs

REST is an HTTP-based protocol. Our API is REST-like because it does not use all the HTTP methods such as PUT and DELETE, but does use GET and POST. An API call represents an action on an object. An object is to a noun as an action is to a verb. So, an API call represents a combination of an object and action (a noun and verb). There are numerous objects, such as servers or load balancers in our system. Depending on the object, there are different actions / verbs that can be applied to it. An example is to list all the servers in your grid. In this case, the server is the object/noun and list is the action/verb.

Each API call is an individual HTTP GET or POST request with a particular URL and HTTP parameters. A client program from any language can easily generate the correct HTTP parameters and URL to access API functions.