Chapter 2
Introducing the AWS API
In This Chapter
What APIs are and why they’re important
Taking a closer look at the AWS API
Knowing when to use the AWS API
Explaining AWS API security
The AWS environment acts as an integrated collection of hardware and software services designed to enable the easy, quick, and inexpensive use of computing resources. (Chapter 1 gives all the details, if you’re curious.) Now, sitting atop this integrated collection is the AWS application programming interface (API, for short): In essence, an API represents a way to communicate with a computing resource. (I tell you more about this topic later in this chapter.) With respect to AWS, nothing gets done without using the AWS API. The AWS API is the sole way that external users interact with AWS resources, and there’s literally no way to use AWS resources without the API being involved. In fact, if you access AWS through the AWS Management Console or the command line tools, you are actually using tools that make calls to the AWS API.
In this chapter, I start by offering an introduction to the world of ...
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