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Prerequisites

Before you can start coding your first client application, there are a few things you need to do, if you haven't done them already.

Contents

  1. Get a Google Account
  2. Request Access to Google Compute Engine
  3. Try Out Google Compute Engine
  4. Learn about Authorization
  5. Learn about REST
  6. Learn about the JSON data format

Get a Google Account

You need a Google Account in order to be given access to Google Compute Engine in the Google APIs Console. If you already have an account, then you're all set.

You may also want a separate Google Account for testing purposes.

Sign up for Google Compute Engine

If you don't have access to Google Compute Engine, sign up for the service.

Try Out Google Compute Engine

This API documentation assumes that you've used Google Compute Engine, and that you're familiar with web programming concepts and web data formats.

If you haven't used Google Compute Engine, then try out the Quickstart before starting to code.

Learn about Authorization

Google Compute Engine uses OAuth 2.0 to authorize requests. If you're not familiar with OAuth 2.0, take a look at how to authorize requests .

Learn about REST

There are two ways to invoke the API:

If you decide not to use client libraries, you'll need to understand the basics of REST.

REST is a style of software architecture that provides a convenient and consistent approach to requesting and modifying data.

The term REST is short for " Representational State Transfer ." In the context of Google APIs, it refers to using HTTP verbs to retrieve and modify representations of data stored by Google.

In a RESTful system, resources are stored in a data store; a client sends a request that the server perform a particular action (such as creating, retrieving, updating, or deleting a resource), and the server performs the action and sends a response, often in the form of a representation of the specified resource.

In Google's RESTful APIs, the client specifies an action using an HTTP verb such as POST , GET , PUT , or DELETE . It specifies a resource by a globally-unique URI of the following form: 

https://www.googleapis.com/apiName/apiVersion/resourcePath?parameters

Because all API resources have unique HTTP-accessible URIs, REST enables data caching and is optimized to work with the web's distributed infrastructure.

For more information about REST, you may find the following third-party documents useful:

REST in the Google Compute Engine API

The Google Compute Engine API operations map directly to REST HTTP verbs.

The specific formats for Google Compute Engine API URIs are: 

https://www.googleapis.com/compute/v1/resourcePath?parameters

The full set of URIs used for each supported operation in the API is summarized in the Google Compute Engine API Reference document.

Learn about the JSON data format

The Google Compute Engine API returns data in JSON format.

JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) is a common, language-independent data format that provides a simple text representation of arbitrary data structures. For more information, see json.org .

Except as otherwise noted, the content of this page is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License , and code samples are licensed under the Apache 2.0 License . For details, see our Site Policies .

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