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Welcome to the home for SoftLayer API documentation! Whether you are an IT professional, a developer for the next great startup, or a hobbyist you are welcome to learn about the SoftLayer API and how it interfaces with our backend systems and services. We have a general overview of the SoftLayer API available for a quick reference.

Whether you are a first time developer new to using an API or a WSDL consuming guru, we have you covered with our Getting Started Guide. Providing information on: choosing a communication protocol, initial API setup requirements, and a few basic code samples the getting started guide will have you up and running in no time.

A few other things you may want to check out:

• SLDN Forums – Ask questions and get answers from other developers utilizing the SoftLayer API
• Open Source Projects – Whether it is a white label portal (like Stratos) or language specific client it may already be available
• Code Snippets – Looking for a detailed example to a specific problem, it may have already been implemented

• Services – groups of methods related to a specific backend system that can be utilized
  

SoftLayer_Account, SoftLayer_Hardware, SoftLayer_Ticket, and many more…

• Methods – actions available inside of an API service
  

getHardware, getInvoiceTopLevelItems, reloadOperatingSystem, and many more...

• Data Types – values sent to and returned by the methods
  

SoftLayer_Software_License, SoftLayer_Virtual_Guest, SoftLayer_Billing_Item, and many more...

The SoftLayer API can be used with any programming language that has support for either the SOAP, XML-RPC, or REST protocols. Each protocol has its advantages and disadvantages with you the developer having the power to choose what best fits your needs.

SoftLayer has been working on examples to get you up and running quickly. Currently we have examples for the following languages: C#, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, Visual Basic .NET. We also are compiling code snippets for common requests, which are easy to port to your programming language of choice and speed up development time.

We would also encourage you to share your work with the community. We are always looking for examples and different programming language implementations not already listed here. If you are interested, feel free to check out the SoftLayer github channel or post what you have been working on in the SLDN Forums.

• SoftLayer Technologies, Inc.
• The SLDN Blog
• Getting Started Guide
• The SLDN Forums
• Open Projects
• Code Snippets

August 12, 2010 : New SLDN blog post

• Captured in a Gem – The SoftLayer API Client for Ruby

August 11, 2010 : .NET REST Tool created.

• Easily make calls to the REST API.
• C# and vb.NET source available.

August 10, 2010 : Ruby client updated.

• Fixed a bug where function parameters may not have been passed to the REST API.

August 5, 2010 : Ruby manual page created.

July 31, 2010 : Ruby client released.

• Initial commit of Ruby SoftLayer API bindings.

July 23, 2010 : New SLDN blog post

• Time for a REST, Everyone

July 9, 2010 : Stratos updated.

• Fixed up/down/recovering hardware count on the main page.

more...