Cloud Computing is fantastic! Where else can you provision infrastructure on the fly, scale it up (add more CPU/RAM/Storage) and out (add more instances of cloud servers) and grow your infrastructure based on your business demands. At GoGrid, we believe in making complex infrastructure easy by providing you with tools to create, manage and scale your GoGrid cloud infrastructure using our web-based portal or programmatic API. But did you know that you can also create and manage your GoGrid cloud infrastructure while you are on the go using your iPhone? Back in 2010, we launched our iPhone application and we designed it to scale as we added new data centers. The application fully supports our San Francisco, Ashburn and Amsterdam data centers simply because we built the app on top of our API.

Are you a mobile apps developer? I would love to see what magic you can do with the GoGrid API in making the next generation Android or iPad application. Feel free to leave a comment on this post.

So, how do you set up the GoGrid iPhone application once you have downloaded it from the iTunes App Store? It’s pretty easy so I wanted to show the steps on setting it up in this article.

Create an API Key within the GoGrid Web Portal

The first step it to create an API key within the GoGrid web portal. You need to have a GoGrid account for this. (For those who are new to GoGrid and want to test it out specifically with the iPhone application, go to the GoGrid sign-up page and in the “Promo Code” field, enter “GGiPhone1″ and receive a $100 service credit!)

1. Log into the GoGrid portal.
2. Navigate to My Account > API Keys:
   
3. On the left, click on “Add an API key” and a new window will open:
   
4. Fill in the information. The Shared Secret is needed within the iPhone app in order to authenticate you to your infrastructure. Also, it is recommended that you use a “Super User” role so that you have full functionality within the iPhone application. Set the status to “Enabled” as well.
5. Click Save and your API key will be created.
   
6. Once the key has been created, be sure to capture it. You will need the key and the Shared Secret in the iPhone application. If you ever need to see the Shared Secret in the future, simply click on the key to see the details:
   

That’s it! With the two API key items, you are now ready to set up the iPhone application to control your infrastructure.

Setting Up Your GoGrid Account on the iPhone Application

Be sure that you first download the FREE GoGrid iPhone application from the iTunes App Store. Armed with the API Key and the Shared Secret, you are ready to configure the iPhone App. Here’s what you need to do.

1. Launch the GoGrid iPhone application.
2. If this is the first time that you have used the iPhone application, you will be prompted to enter an optional passcode. You can skip this step if you want, otherwise, we do recommend that you enter a 4-digit passcode:
   
3. Once you have set up a passcode (or authenticate in if you are a returning user), click on the “Add a New Account” in the Accounts pane:
   
4. In the New Account pane, enter in a Name for your Account (note, this is a local name only and is not transmitted back to the portal) and your API Key and Shared Secret:
   
5. Click the Done button and your new account will show in the Accounts pane:
   
6. Now click “Log In” to connect to your GoGrid infrastructure. (Note: you must have an Internet connection in order to do this.) The first screen that you will see are your GoGrid Cloud Servers:
   

Now that you have your GoGrid infrastructure connected to the iPhone app, you probably wonder what you can do with it. Also, if you ever want to remove access to your GoGrid infrastructure on the iPhone application, the easiest way to do this is to simply delete the API Key from within the GoGrid portal.

Managing your GoGrid Infrastructure via the iPhone Application

There are a variety of things that you can do with the GoGrid iPhone application once you have it configured, namely:

• View/Add/Delete/Restart GoGrid Cloud Servers
• View/Add/Edit/Delete F5 Load Balancers
• View Status of Objects and IP Addresses
• View Server User and Passwords
• View and Filter GoGrid Job History
• View Current Billing Information
• Multiple Datacenter Support
• Multiple Account Support
• Access additional information about GoGrid

While I’m not going to walk through each and every function of the iPhone application, here are some highlights:

View/Edit your Cloud Servers:

View your Load Balancers:

Add/Edit your Load Balancers:

View/Filter your IP addresses:

View your Job History:

View Account/Passwords and more:

So, if you are a current GoGrid user and have an iPhone, I encourage you to download the GoGrid iPhone application and start managing your infrastructure on the go. And perhaps, if you are a mobile or web developer, the fact that the iPhone application was built completely using our API might inspire you to craft your own mobile or web interface to control GoGrid infrastructure. If you do create something interesting and innovating, please do share it with me with your contact information so that I can check it out!

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Michael Sheehan

Technology Evangelist at GoGrid

Michael Sheehan is the Technology Evangelist for GoGrid & "Social Media Strategist" as well. He handles digital media marketing, online audience development, PR, media relations, content creation and editing as well as a variety of other tasks. He is also an avid social media pundit and technology blogger.

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Tags: API, API key, cloud, control, Developer, GoGrid, IaaS, infrastructure, iOS, iPhone, manage, mobile, mobile application, Shared Secret
This entry was posted on Thursday, May 10th, 2012 at 10:29 am and is filed under API, Cloud Computing, Cloud Server, Features, General, GoGrid, How To, iPhone, Load Balancer, Public Cloud. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.