What Is AWS Service Catalog? - AWS Service Catalog
Benefits of Using the Service Catalog APIAccess Service CatalogExample Workflow

What Is AWS Service Catalog?

AWS Service Catalog enables organizations to create and manage catalogs of products that are approved for use in AWS.

If you are new to AWS Service Catalog, see the following guides: Service Catalog Administrator Guide and Service Catalog User Guide.

Benefits of Using the Service Catalog API

The AWS Service Catalog API provides programmatic control over all end-user actions as an alternative to using the AWS Management Console. When you use the API, you can do the following:

  • Write your own custom interfaces and apps

  • Obtain fine-grained control of end user product provisioning operations

  • Integrate resource provisioning into your orchestration pipelines

  • Access a central location that hosts your applications with their resources

Access Service Catalog

To build applications using language-specific APIs, use the libraries, sample code, tutorials, and other resources for software developers. These libraries provide basic functions that automate tasks such as cryptographically signing your requests, retrying requests, and handling error responses, making it is easier for you to get started. To get started, open Tools for Amazon Web Services and locate the SDK of your choice under SDKs.

If you prefer to use a command line interface, you have the following options:

AWS Command Line Interface (CLI)

To get started, see the AWS Command Line Interface User Guide. For more information about the commands for Service Catalog, see servicecatalog in the AWS CLI Command Reference.

AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell

To get started, see the AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell User Guide. For more information about the cmdlets for Service Catalog, open the AWS Tools for PowerShell Cmdlet Reference and expand AWS Service Catalog.

Example Workflow

In this scenario, the administrator creates resources using Service Catalog and an end user finds what products are available and provisions the product. This is an example workflow; this is not the only way to use the Service Catalog API.

Administrator Tasks

  • Create portfolios, product views, products, product versions, and constraints.

  • Assign IAM users to products, which gives them access.

End User Tasks

  1. The user calls SearchProducts with no arguments. This returns the list of products the user has access to, as well as a "SearchDomain" that can be used to scope the results.

  2. The user continues to call SearchProducts with additional search filters until the desired product is found.

  3. The user calls DescribeProductView to find the list of provisioning artifacts (also known as versions) for this product. This determines what the user actually provisions.

  4. The user calls ListLaunchPaths to find the list of paths for this product, along with the constraints for each path. This determines what set of constraints is applied on the provisioned product.

  5. After choosing a provisioning artifact and a path, the user calls DescribeProvisioningParameters. This returns the list of parameters the user must provide before provisioning a product using the provisioning artifact and path, along with whatever additional usage instructions the administrator decided to provide.

  6. The user calls ProvisionProduct, specifying the product, provisioning artifact, path, and input parameters. The input parameters are a list of key-value pairs, where the keys are obtained using DescribeProvisioningParameters and the values are user-provided (for example, {ParameterKey:"dbpassword", ParameterValue:"mycoolpassword"}). This starts a workflow to create the specified AWS resources. It also creates a record detail that tracks the provisioning request, and a provisioned product object that represents the underlying AWS resources.

  7. The user polls DescribeRecord to see when the status of the record detail changes from the IN_PROGRESS state to a completed state (either SUCCEEDED or ERROR).

  8. When the record detail for the request is in a completed state, the user calls DescribeRecord once more. The outputs identifies the created resources.

  9. The user calls UpdateProvisionedProduct to update the underlying resources in place. Depending on the specific updates requested, this operation can update with no interruption, with some interruption, or replace the provisioned product entirely.

  10. Finally, the user calls TerminateProvisionedProduct to terminate the provisioned product.