README.md

# erlcloud: Cloud Computing APIs For Erlang #

This is version 0.8.0.  The API is subject to change.

Service APIs implemented:

- Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
- Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3)
- Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS)
- Amazon SimpleDB
- Amazon Mechanical Turk
- Amazon CloudWatch (MON)
- Amazon DynamoDB (ddb2) 

All API functions have been implemented.  Not all functions have been thoroughly tested, so exercise care when integrating this library into production code.  Please send bug reports and patches.

The libraries can be used two ways: either you can specify configuration parameters in the process dictionary, or you can create a configuration object and pass that to each request as the final parameter.

## Getting started ##
You need to clone the repository and download rebar (if it's not already available in your path).

```
git clone https://github.com/gleber/erlcloud.git
cd erlcloud
wget http://cloud.github.com/downloads/basho/rebar/rebar && chmod u+x rebar
```

You can provide your amazon credentials in environmental variables.

```
export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=<Your AWS Access Key>
export AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=<Your AWS Secret Access Key>
```
To compile and run erlcloud
```
make run
```

If you're using erlcloud in your application, add it as a dependency in your application's configuration file.  To use erlcloud in the shell, you can start it by calling:

```
ssl:start().
erlcloud:start().
```


If you did not provide your amazon credentials in the environmental variables, then you need to provide the per-process configuration:

```
erlcloud_ec2:configure(AccessKeyId, SecretAccessKey [, Hostname]).
```

Hostname defaults to "ec2.amazonaws.com".


Then you can start making api calls, like:

```
erlcloud_ec2:describe_images().
erlcloud_s3:list_buckets().
```

Configuration object usage:

```
EC2 = erlcloud_ec2:new(AccessKeyId, SecretAccessKey [, Hostname])
erlcloud_ec2:describe_images(EC2).
```

Creating an EC2 instance may look like this:
```
start_instance(Ami, KeyPair, UserData, Type, Zone) ->
    Config = #aws_config{
            access_key_id = application:get_env(aws_key),
            secret_access_key = application:get_env(aws_secret)
           },

    InstanceSpec = #ec2_instance_spec{image_id = Ami,
                                      key_name = KeyPair,
                                      instance_type = Type,
                                      availability_zone = Zone,
                                      user_data = UserData},
    erlcloud_ec2:run_instances(InstanceSpec, Config).
```

For usage information, consult the source code and refer to the API reference at:

- http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/APIReference/Welcome.html
- http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/API/Welcome.html
- http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/AmazonSimpleDB/latest/DeveloperGuide/

## Roadmap ##

v0.8.0
* Existing code

v0.9.0
* Make unit tests useful and improve documentation

v1.0.0
* Refactored code for better return values (issue #7)

## Notes ##

Indentation in contributions should follow indentation style of surrounding text. In general it follows default indentation rules of official erlang-mode as provided by OTP team.