IBM Spectrum Scale management API

With the IBM Spectrum Scale™ management API, you can develop scripts to automate labor-intensive cluster management tasks. These APIs provide a useful way to integrate and use the IBM Spectrum Scale system.

The IBM Spectrum Scale management API is a REST-style interface for managing IBM Spectrum Scale cluster resources. It runs on HTTPS and uses JSON syntax to frame data inside HTTP requests and responses. For more information, see Functional overview.

Based on the architecture and syntax, the following two different versions are available for IBM Spectrum Scale management API:

IBM Spectrum Scale management API Version 1

Introduced in the IBM Spectrum Scale 4.2.2 release. Implementation was based on Python and the deployment limited only to the manager nodes that runs on RHEL7.

IBM Spectrum Scale management API Version 2

Introduced in the 4.2.3 release. The implementation is based on GUI stack. GUI server is managing and processing the API requests and commands. The following figure illustrates the architecture of API Version 2:

Figure 1. IBM Spectrum Scale management API Version 2 architecture

The Version 2 has the following features:

Reuses the GUI deployment's backend infrastructure, which makes introduction of new API commands easier.
Uses the same role-based access feature that is available to authenticate and authorize the GUI users. No additional configuration required for the API users.
Makes deployment easier as the GUI installation takes care of the basic deployment.
Fixes scalability issues and introduces new features such as filter and field parameters and it supports paging.
Highly scalable and can support large clusters with thousands of nodes.
The APIs are driven by the same WebSphere® server and object cache that is used by the IBM Spectrum Scale GUI.

Important: Both version 1 and version 2 are supported in IBM Spectrum Scale 4.2.3 release. However, new API commands and features are added only in the version 2 architecture. Those who are using the APIs in the version 1 architecture are recommended to switch to version 2 to avail advanced features and flexibility.

Installing and configuring IBM Spectrum Scale management API

For information about how to configure the IBM Spectrum Scale system to start using the APIs, see Installing and configuring IBM Spectrum Scale management API.

IBM Spectrum Scale management API command reference

For information about the API commands, see IBM Spectrum Scale management API commands.

You can also access the documentation corresponding to each API command from the GUI itself. The API documentation is available in the GUI at: https://<IP address or host name of API server>:<port>/ibm/api/explorer/. For example: https://scalegui.ibm.com:443/ibm/api/explorer.

Using the IBM Spectrum Scale management API

The following topics describe the commands that the API provides and the rules for working with requests and responses.