The service catalog provides information about Rackspace Cloud services that are available to customers who have successfully authenticated, including the API service endpoints to access the service. You can view service catalog details in the authentication response returned by the Identity service.
Each service has a unique name and an associated service type that identities the function that the service provides.
Service types in the catalog
Every service listed in the catalog is associated with a service type. You can use the service type to identify services that perform similar functions, whatever those services are named.
The following table provides information about the service types supported by the Rackspace Cloud. To learn more about any of the Rackspace services listed, see the Rackspace developer documentation.
Table: Service types
| Service type | Description |
|---|---|
| compute | Services of this type provide managed VMs and bare-metal servers in the cloud. Cloud Servers is the name of a Rackspace Cloud Cloud service of this type. This Rackspace service is compatible with the OpenStack Compute (Nova) version 1.1 service. |
| identity | Services of this type provide authentication, authorization, administration, and audit capabilities to provision and manage users who request access to Rackspace Cloud service access to Rackspace Cloud services. Identity is the name of the Rackspace service of this type. The service is compatible with the OpenStack Identity (Keystone) version 2 service. |
| image | Services of this type offer retrieval, storage storage, and metadata assignment for Rackspace Cloud Server images. Cloud Images is the name of the Rackspace Cloud service of this type. The Rackspace service is compatible with the OpenStack Images (Glance) service . |
| object-store | Services of this type provide scalable cloud object storage for files and media. Cloud Files is the name of the Rackspace Cloud service of this type. The Rackspace service is compatible with the OpenStack Object Storage (Swift) service. |
| network | Services of this type enable you to create isolated networks that provision server instances with Rackspace networks or the isolated networks you create. Rackspace supports two services of this type: Cloud Networks, which is compatible with the OpenStack Networking (Neutron) Service. The nova-network component of the Rackspace Cloud Servers Service, which is compatible with the network component of the OpenStack Compute (Nova) service. |
| volume | Services of this type provide online object storage for files and allow customers to mount drives or volumes to their Rackspace Next Generation Cloud Servers™. Cloud BlockStorage is the name of a Rackspace Cloud service of this type. The Rackspace service is built on the OpenStack Block Storage (Cinder) service. |
| rax:autoscale | Services of this type enable you to define policies to dynamically scale cloud resources in response to changing workloads. Rackspace Auto Scale is the name of a Rackspace Cloud service of this type. |
| rax:backup | Services of this type enable you to create and manage backup versions of cloud server files and folders that you select, and to restore files to their original location or to another server. Cloud Backup is the name of a Rackspace Cloud service of this type. |
| rax:bigdata | Services of this type provide on-demand Apache Hadoop service available in the Rackspace Cloud that enable you to deploy, manage, and scale Hadoop clusters. Cloud Big Data is the name of a Rackspace Cloud service of this type. |
| rax:database | Services of this type provide fast, scalable, fully managed MySQL databases in the Rackspace Cloud. Cloud Databases is the name of a Rackspace Cloud service of this type. |
| rax:dns | Services of this type simplify and automate DNS management. Cloud DNS is the name of a Rackspace Cloud service of this type. |
| rax:feeds | Services of this type enable customers on the Rackspace public cloud to access and collect near real-time usage and system event data that can be used for analysis, monitoring, and automation. Cloud Feeds is the name of a Rackspace Cloud service of this type. |
| rax:load-balancer | Services of this type provide on-demand, scalable traffic management. Cloud Load Balancers is the name of a Rackspace Cloud service of this type. |
| rax:cloudmetrics | Services of this type allow users to collect and analyze various metrics and to quickly iterate through the data with queries and set up dashboard metrics for ongoing metrics monitoring. Cloud Metrics is the name of a Rackspace Cloud service of this type. |
| rax:monitor | Services of this type enable you to create custom infrastructure monitoring with real-time alerts, notifications, and flexible configurations. Cloud Monitoring is the name of a Rackspace Cloud service of this type. |
| rax:orchestration | Services of this type enable you to automate and standardize cloud infrastructure setup and management. Cloud Orchestration is the name of the Rackspace service of this type. The Rackspace Cloud service is compatible with the OpenStack Orchestration (Heat) service. |
| rax:queues | Services of this type provide an open-source, scalable, and highly available message and notifications service. Cloud Queues is the name of a Rackspace Cloud service of this type. This service is like the OpenStack Messages (Zaqar) service. |
Suggested work flow for processing a service catalog response
When your client issues a successful authentication request, the Cloud Identity service returns a service catalog that lists the available services and endpoints to access them. (See Annotated authentication request and response for a service catalog example.)
As the client developer, you must decide how your client can use the contents of its service catalog. The first step is to identify a service that you want the client to access. Following is one possible work flow for processing the service catalog response to identify available services and their endpoints:
- If the service catalog lists only one endpoint, use it.
This endpoint connects your client to the only service available. - If the service catalog lists multiple endpoints, establish a process for the client to select the endpoint for the connection:
- If the user does not specify which endpoint to use, generate an error.
- If the user specified which endpoint to use, help the user identify that endpoint from within the catalog:
- Support filtering by endpoint name, service name, service type, region name, and version.
- Support manual specification of an endpoint via a URL parameter.
Tip
When you parse an authentication response programmatically, use the service type instead of service name as the basis for determining whether a user has access to a particular kind of service. Service type is stable across all releases; new service types can be added, but existing service types are not renamed. For example, if new compute services are added with different names, the service type filter returns all available services.
Example: Connect a client to an endpoint listed as type=”compute”.
- Navigate to the endpoint for the specified compute service, and use its WWW-Authenticate header to determine what authentication server it uses.
- Go to that authentication server and authenticate.
- Return to the compute endpoint and proceed with using the compute service.