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Understanding the ONTAP REST API

Beginning with version 9.6, ONTAP includes a REST web services API. You can use the REST API to deploy and administer ONTAP storage resources. Before using the API, you should understand its design, architectural components, and limitations.

  • REST web services foundation
    Representational State Transfer (REST) is a style for creating distributed web applications. When applied to the design of a web services API, it establishes a set of technologies and best practices for exposing server-based resources and managing their states. It uses mainstream protocols and standards to provide a flexible foundation for administering ONTAP clusters.
  • ONTAP REST API versioning
    The REST API included with ONTAP 9 is assigned a version number. The API version number is independent of the ONTAP version number. You should be aware of the API version included with your release of ONTAP and how this might affect your use of the API.
  • How to access the ONTAP API
    You can access the ONTAP REST API in several different ways.
  • Basic operational characteristics
    While REST establishes a common set of technologies and best practices, the details of each API can vary based on the design choices.
  • Input variables controlling an API request
    You can control how an API call is processed through parameters and variables set in the HTTP request.
  • Interpreting an API response
    Each API request generates a response back to the client. You should examine the response to determine whether it was successful and retrieve additional data as needed.
  • How asynchronous processing works using the Job object
    After issuing an API request that is designed to run asynchronously, a job object is always created and returned to the caller. The job describes and anchors a background task that processes the request. Depending on the HTTP status code, you must retrieve the state of the job to determine if the request was successful.