What Is Amazon Service Catalog?
Amazon Service Catalog
If you are new to Amazon Service Catalog, see the following guides: Service Catalog Administrator Guide and Service Catalog User Guide.
Benefits of Using the Service Catalog API
The Amazon Service Catalog API provides programmatic control over all end-user actions as an alternative to using the Amazon Web Services Management Console. When you use the API, you can do the following:
-
Write your own custom interfaces and apps
-
Obtain fine-grained control of end user product provisioning operations
-
Integrate resource provisioning into your orchestration pipelines
-
Access a central location that hosts your applications with their resources
Access Service Catalog
To build applications using language-specific APIs, use the libraries, sample code, tutorials,
and other resources for software developers. These libraries provide basic functions that
automate tasks such as cryptographically signing your requests, retrying requests, and
handling error responses, making it is easier for you to get started. To get started,
open Tools for Amazon Web Services
If you prefer to use a command line interface, you have the following options:
- Amazon Command Line Interface (CLI)
-
To get started, see the Amazon Command Line Interface User Guide. For more information about the commands for Service Catalog, see servicecatalog in the Amazon CLI Command Reference.
- Amazon Tools for Windows PowerShell
-
To get started, see the Amazon Tools for Windows PowerShell User Guide. For more information about the cmdlets for Service Catalog, open the Amazon Tools for PowerShell Cmdlet Reference and expand Amazon Service Catalog.
Example Workflow
In this scenario, the administrator creates resources using Service Catalog and an end user finds what products are available and provisions the product. This is an example workflow; this is not the only way to use the Service Catalog API.
Administrator Tasks
Create portfolios, product views, products, product versions, and constraints.
Assign IAM users to products, which gives them access.
End User Tasks
-
The user calls SearchProducts with no arguments. This returns the list of products the user has access to, as well as a "SearchDomain" that can be used to scope the results.
-
The user continues to call SearchProducts with additional search filters until the desired product is found.
-
The user calls DescribeProductView to find the list of provisioning artifacts (also known as versions) for this product. This determines what the user actually provisions.
-
The user calls ListLaunchPaths to find the list of paths for this product, along with the constraints for each path. This determines what set of constraints is applied on the provisioned product.
-
After choosing a provisioning artifact and a path, the user calls DescribeProvisioningParameters. This returns the list of parameters the user must provide before provisioning a product using the provisioning artifact and path, along with whatever additional usage instructions the administrator decided to provide.
-
The user calls ProvisionProduct, specifying the product, provisioning artifact, path, and input parameters. The input parameters are a list of key-value pairs, where the keys are obtained using DescribeProvisioningParameters and the values are user-provided (for example,
{ParameterKey:"dbpassword", ParameterValue:"mycoolpassword"}
). This starts a workflow to create the specified Amazon resources. It also creates a record detail that tracks the provisioning request, and a provisioned product object that represents the underlying Amazon resources. -
The user polls DescribeRecord to see when the status of the record detail changes from the
IN_PROGRESS
state to a completed state (eitherSUCCEEDED
orERROR
). -
When the record detail for the request is in a completed state, the user calls DescribeRecord once more. The outputs identifies the created resources.
-
The user calls UpdateProvisionedProduct to update the underlying resources in place. Depending on the specific updates requested, this operation can update with no interruption, with some interruption, or replace the provisioned product entirely.
-
Finally, the user calls TerminateProvisionedProduct to terminate the provisioned product.