Re: [Xen-API] Few Questions About Xen management API

[Ewan Mellor <ewan@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, Aug 12, 2006 at 04:02:28PM +0800, rickey berkeley wrote:

> Hi Folks :
> 
>      After going through this mailing list , reading u guys' discusstion
> about the xen management API .
>      I'v got a few questions about this.
> 
>     1) What's the benifit of using xml-rpc to implement the APIS? It seems
> that soap has more powerful function comparing
>         with xml-rpc (wsdl support etc), and it is also very popular .

We have a separate project to create a DMTF CIM provider for Xen.  CIM is a
very comprehensive specification and includes amongst other things, bindings
to SOAP.  The idea is that the Xen-API project will provide something
lightweight and simple (so that we can get it stabilised right away) and then
the Xen-CIM project would sit on top providing the additional protocols,
better interoperability, and so on.

If you just want bare-bones access to a Xen-based system, you can use the Xen
API, but in an enterprise environment where SOAP's benefits come into play,
you would choose to use the CIM providers.  CIM has a large number of
advantages in that environment, a binding to SOAP being just one of them, and
by the time you're working at that kind of scale, you may choose not to use
SOAP in any case.

In summary, the Xen API is the simple bare-bones management, and other
facilities would be built on top.  XML-RPC has the advantage of being very
simple, and well supported across many languages.


>     2) I saw that APIs were implemented by c bindings, so do u guys have
> some plan for the othe lanaguage ? ( python etc .)
>         I think using python implementation will be good at compatible
> with xm and current xend tools

Python definitely.  The plan is to move xm and xend to the new API for the
Xen 3.0.4 release, and of course we will get Python bindings out of that.

If there are any other languages that you are interested in, please shout, and
we'll see what we can do.

>     3) Can I use the lateast verison of these bindings, and integrate
> with our own products right now?

You can use them, certainly, but they aren't going to be stable or supported
until the 3.0.4 release (early November, at a guess).

Obviously, we would like to see people start to use them now so that we can
test whether they are offering the right facilities in the right way, and then
when 3.0.4 comes out, your products would be ready to go out of the door
immediately.  You would also have plenty of influence over the API, so we
would hopefully end up with something that's a very good fit for your
products.

Expect plenty of change until then though, so resource your project
appropriately ;-)


>         Is  there a simple demo to show how to use this lib?

See test/test_bindings.c.

>     4) How can I get the API source code? Is there a CVS server or
> something ?

There's just the tarball kicking around for now.  The code will drop into the
xen-unstable tree once Xen 3.0.3 is released (within a week or two,
hopefully).  I'll go put that tarball on the XenApi wiki page.

Cheers,

Ewan.

_______________________________________________
xen-api mailing list
xen-api@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.xensource.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/xen-api