API

Rackspace Cloud Files users now have finer control over how to manage objects and containers with several exciting new API and Control Panel features that we rolled out this week.

Last fall Rackspace announced the unlimited availability of Cloud Monitoring, our highly available API-driven monitoring system that is changing how we deliver Fanatical Support. Since then, we have been quietly adding features; and today we’re making those features available through unlimited availability, and we’re unveiling even more.

You’ve worked hard on your application and are gearing up for a major event. You’ve heard me talk about the power of the cloud API, and have incorporated it into your app to control cloud infrastructure, in particular to scale up your configuration in a short amount of time. But before the big day comes, there is one important point to remember as you plan for a high traffic event.

Emergent One, with team members in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles and Richmond, Va., helps companies build and manage APIs for their existing applications faster, easier and cheaper than developing them in-house. The Emergent One platform hooks into an application’s database and gives the customer the ability to quickly include any of their data in a customized API, which is then hosted and able to scale in the cloud. Along with the API, a developer portal with full documentation and an interactive console is provided, so people can get started using the new API immediately.

When I first got into hosting, we had to call somebody at our data center any time a customer wanted to make changes to their configuration, such as adding more resources. Our Racker in the DC would have to locate the physical server and install additional hardware to the machine, or they might have to build and provision a completely new server. Our Cloud Application Programming Interface (API) has changed the game, allowing our customers to easily modify their cloud configuration with just a few lines of code. The API is a powerful tool and something all of our customers should know about, regardless of their level of technical ability.

Among the many reasons why people choose the cloud, one of the most powerful is the Application Programming Interface, more commonly referred to as the API. As developers continue adopting virtual environments to host their sites and apps, we’re seeing increasingly innovative and powerful uses of this feature.

At Rackspace, in an effort to ensure that our customers get the most out of what we offer, we constantly work to update and improve the solutions we provide. We’ve recently made a few updates to our RackConnect solution that will help our customers better leverage a hybrid cloud environment.

Using the Cloud Control Panel to manage your Cloud Databases is great for scenarios where your application has only a few databases or you don’t have a lot of automation needs. But what if you are responsible for tens or hundreds of databases? Maybe it’s because you manage them on behalf of your customers or offer services on top of Cloud Databases. In that case, using the Cloud Databases API is almost a requirement.

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EDITOR’S NOTE (December 27, 2012): This feature is temporarily unavailable. We will update you once it becomes available again.