I would add a reverse mapping so lookups don't have to be..... weird.

```python
SIMPLE_TYPE_MAP = { ... }
API_TYPE_MAP = dict((v,k) for k, v in map.iteritems())
```

Then using that will just be like:
```python
return SIMPLE_TYPE_MAP.get(api_type,
                           api_type.replace('SoftLayer_', ''))
```
and

```python
return API_TYPE_MAP .get(simple_type,
                         'SoftLayer_%s' % simple_type
```