IBM Cloud Docs
Getting started with IBM Cloudant

Getting started with IBM Cloudant

The IBM® Cloudant® for IBM Cloud® Getting started tutorial demonstrates how to use the IBM Cloud® dashboard to create an IBM Cloudant service instance and obtain service credentials to connect to it. Finally, it guides you through the creation of a simple, locally hosted web application that uses your IBM Cloudant database.

Objectives

  • Create a service instance.
  • Create an IBM Cloudant service credential.

Creating a service instance

  1. Log in to your IBM Cloud account, and click Create resource.

    IBM Cloud Dashboard, which includes Build tile, Monitor your resources tile, Create and deploy an application tile, API Connect tile, Integrate Watson with anything tile, and Watson starter kits tile.
    Figure 1. IBM Cloud Dashboard

    The IBM Cloud Dashboard can be found at: https://cloud.ibm.com/. After you authenticate with your username and password, you're presented with the IBM Cloud Dashboard.

  2. Type Cloudant in the Search bar and click to open it.

  3. Select an offering and an environment.

  4. Type an instance name.

    Create the IBM Cloudant service name and credentials.
    Figure 2. IBM Cloudant service name and credentials

    (In this example, the instance name is Cloudant-o7.) Verify that the resource group and authentication methods are correct. Add a tag if you like. The authentication methods that are available include IAM or IAM and legacy credentials. For more information, see authentication methods.

    The IBM Cloudant team encourages you to use IAM access controls over IBM Cloudant legacy authentication whenever possible.

  5. Select your plan.

  6. To create the service, click Create:

    After you click Create, the system displays a message to say that the instance is being provisioned, which returns you to the Resource list. From the Resource list, you see that the status for your instance is, Provision in progress.

  7. After you create an instance, the status changes to Active.

  8. Click the instance, and proceed to the next section, Creating service credentials.

Creating service credentials

  1. For more information about where to find your credentials, see Locating your credentials.

  2. See more information on Understanding your service credentials.

  3. Now, you're ready to use your IBM Cloudant database and get familiar with the basic features of IBM Cloud by following this tutorial: Creating a web-based To-Do list.