Virtual Machine Format (OVF) targets interoperability
An plan to forge an Open Virtual Machine Format (OVF) was announced by the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) at VMWorld this week. Format contributors inlcude HP, IBM, Microsoft, VMware and XenSource.
Burton Group analyst Chris Wolf blogs that:
| OVF defines an XML wrapper that encapsulates one or more virtual machines and provides a common interface so that the VMs can run on any hypervisor that supports OVF. OVF packaging and hypervisor support is expected by the end of the year. So when OVF is supported on Xen and VMware virtualization platforms for example, a VM packaged on a VMware hypervisor can run on a Xen hypervisor, and vice-versa. ISVs wishing to ship demo versions of their software will be able to package a virtual machine or set of virtual machines using OVF, knowing that their package can run on any hypervisor. |
If you are not a denizen of a data center, we will tell you that a hypervisor, sometimes referred to as a virtualization manager, is a program that allows multiple operating systems to share a single hardware processor.
Related
DMTF accepts OVM format proposal - SearchServerVirtualization.com
October 24th, 2007 at 9:44 pm
OVF: Open Virtual Machine Format
Finally, there is a common machine format. Only took a few years.
OVF supports a number of features that will enhance customers’ experience with virtualization, including portability, platform independence, verification, signing, versioning, and lice…