General API Requirements

• Create, update, delete, display attributes of a resource. The resource can be either virtual or physical.
• Update should imply reconfiguration in the relevent context
• Perform basic life cycle operations on provided resources. (start, stop, suspend, resume)
• Group resources logically - a cluster.
• Group groups of resources logically - a domain or "data centre".
• Requests to the interface should be functionally complete - document-oriented. These requests will form the agreement between customer and provider and in effect establish a SLA.
• Resources that are provided should be monitorable and verifiable (e.g. you get what you ask for)
• Limit functional leakage in the interface. For example, seperate the management of hyervisors and the management of resources created by a hypervisor. For example don't allow the listing of all VMs under on hypervisor.
• (Done suggested below) Like with the Sun Cloud API, there should be one single point of entry that allows the discovery of all other resources belonging to the customer. This is an aspect of REST but one that can be simulated in other approaches.

Features

• Anonymous access possible for e.g. demo, sales
• Compatible with other (e.g. web, api) interfaces (uses HTTP content negotiation)
• Extensible
• Fine-grained security