BLjellis's Posts

BlueLock does fully support vCloud API 1.0 - we provide the straight reference implementation provided by VMware. We launched this as part of our vCloud Datacenter beta in 2010, and we now fully support it as a production solution. Several open source projects and commercial software vendors have worked with us to develop solutions leveraging the vCloud API. We consume it internally as well; we've built solutions on top of the 0.8 specification, 0.9 and finally 1.0 1.0 is definitely a fantastic solution and has sizable improvements over 0.8. Allocation information and OVF payloads as part of the API make resource management tons easier.

In general, HREFs are unique and point to a specific, instantiated resource within a single vCloud Director installation. They are not portable, but are auto-generated when the resource is provisioned.

I'm not sure of any client API implementations using C# (other than just using a C# REST framework as you mentioned), but I might be able to address the remaining questions. The vCloud API doesn't necessarily have to be delivered alongside of Express, however that's most commonly the case. The vCloud API covers things not conventionally available in a vanilla vSphere install; many of the deployment and administration features (especially for isolation) are features available in Express but not necessarily available through vCenter alone. Express providers don't necessarily have to expose the vCloud API, but that's most often the case. For example, our instance at BlueLock exposes the vCloud API in nearly the same context as the web admin portal itself, so they often march together with bugfixes, feature enhancements, etc. So far, whenever I've seen the "Express API" mentioned in the forums the poster is mentioning the vCloud API. It's pretty much the only user-facing API I've seen implemented for Express. Hope that helps!

It looks like your user is on express3.bluelock.com but you are making a call to express2.bluelock.com. Or I need more coffee. Not sure. Feel free to send me a private message or post on forums.bluelock.com. I think we can get you up and runnin' in short order! We're focusing a lot on making sure the vCloud API runs well, and I'd also like to make sure we document best practices along the way.

I'm of the same mind - the implementation can be a bit loose, especially when perusing networking configurations This becomes more evident when you look at jclouds (a cloud Java API) implementations between providers. We've tried to keep the BlueLock vCloud API implementation as close to the Express reference implementation as possible, and I think those providers that keep close to the Express... errr... expression will probably stay true to the original intent. It's tough because schemas aren't enough to constrain things like network provisioning. If vendor-specific extensions are allowed in future revisions that will likely help a fair deal.

BlueLock's implementation of the vCloud API was also developed in conjunction with VMWare. There are a few bugs with the implementation during this free beta phase - in fact there are a few fixes being released this coming Tuesday. I'll try out your deployment and see what suggestions I can make. At first blush it appears you're attempting to allocate resources from the resource pool that are currently unauthorized, but I'll double-check to make sure. Definitely feel free to post at forums.bluelock.com as well - we monitor them quite closely and usually get responses out in a few hours.