Active System Manager Release 8.1.1 API Reference Guide

This document is intended for a technical audience. It is assumed that the reader is familiar with REST, and programmatic interaction with REST APIs. In reality, any programming languages can be used with these APIs, however, the code examples contained in this guide are written in Ruby. XML is also used extensively for these examples.

Dell Active System Manager ( ASM) is an acronym for Dell Active System Manager. ASM is intended to automate the processes involved in provisioning, configuring, and managing bare metal hardware: chassis, servers, switches, and network storage devices. ASM supports processes such as automated discovery of hardware, automated installation of operating systems, creation of virtual networks, and firmware management.

Two essential concepts in ASM are, ServiceTemplate and Deployment process. A ServiceTemplate describes a blueprint for provisioning and configuring a collection of devices as a named unit, also known as a Service. Deployment is the process of utilizing a ServiceTemplate to physically realize what service the ServiceTemplate describes. While the names Deployment and Service are synonymous, ASM-UI uses the term Service while the REST API uses the term Deployment.

ASM is distributed as a virtual appliance running a collection of interacting web applications that communicate through the REST interfaces. An additional web application, ASM-UI, also residing on the appliance, provides full browser-based GUI access to ASM. This ASM-UI interacts with ASM through the same REST interfaces described in this guide.

It is possible to effectively integrate ASM with any custom UI or access it through programs for better automation experiences.

In this API guide, we have described how to use these APIs with appropriate examples.