Every action you make in AWS is an API call that is authenticated and authorized. In AWS, you can make API calls to services and resources through the AWS Management Console, AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI), or AWS software development kits (SDKs).
The AWS Management Console
The AWS Management Console
One way to manage cloud resources is through the web-based console, where you log in and choose the desired service. This can be the easiest way to create and manage resources when you first begin working with the cloud. Below is a screenshot that shows the landing page when you first log in to the AWS Management Console.
The services are placed in categories, such as Compute, Storage, Database, and Analytics
On
the upper-right corner is the Region selector. If you choose it and
change the Region, you will make requests to the services in the chosen
Region. The URL changes, too. Changing the Region setting directs your
browser to make requests to a different AWS Region, represented by a
different subdomain.
The AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI)
The AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI)
Consider
the scenario where you run tens of servers on AWS for your
application’s front end. You want to run a report to collect data from
all the servers. You need to do this programmatically every day because
the server details might change. Instead of manually logging in to the
AWS Management Console and then copying and pasting information, you can
schedule an AWS CLI script with an API call to pull this data for you.
The
AWS CLI is a unified tool that you can use to manage AWS services. You
can download and configure one tool that you can use to control multiple
AWS services from the command line and automate them with scripts. The
AWS CLI is open-source, and installers are available for Windows, Linux,
and macOS.
For example, if you run the following API call against a service using AWS CLI:
aws ec2 describe-instances
you will get the following response:
{
"Reservations": [
{
"Groups": [ ],
"Instances": [
{
"AmiLaunchIndex": 0,
AWS SDKs
AWS SDKs
API
calls to AWS can also be performed by running code with programming
languages. You can do this by using AWS software development kits
(SDKs). SDKs are open source and maintained by AWS for the most popular
programming languages, such as C++, Go, Java, JavaScript, .NET, Node.js,
PHP, Python, and Ruby.
Developers commonly use AWS SDKs to
integrate their application source code with AWS services. For example,
consider an application with a front end that runs in Python. Every time
the application receives a cat photo, it uploads the file to a storage
service. This action can be achieved in the source code by using the AWS
SDK for Python. Here is an example of code you can implement to work
with AWS resources using the Python AWS SDK.
ec2 = boto3.client('ec2')
response = ec2.describe_instances()
print(response)
Source - Amazon