Last month virtualization.info broke the news VMware is going to introduce a new virtual machines format called OVF (Open Virtual Format) in upcoming VMware Infrastructure 3.5.
Now an official announcement from Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) confirms the effort and reveals OVF is a commonly agreed format which will simplify interoperability between different virtualization vendors:
The Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) today announced the acceptance of a draft specification submitted by leading virtualization companies targeting an industry standard format for portable virtual machines. Virtual machines packaged in this format can be installed on any virtualization platform that supports the standard simplifying interoperability, security and virtual machine lifecycle management for virtual infrastructures.
The companies behind the collaboration on this specification include Dell, HP, IBM, Microsoft, VMware, and XenSource. This group of virtualization industry leaders has submitted the specification to the DMTF for development into an industry standard.
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The proposed format, called the Open Virtual Machine Format (OVF), uses existing packaging tools to combine one or more virtual machines together with a standards-based XML wrapper, giving the virtualization platform a portable package containing all required installation and configuration parameters for the virtual machines. This allows any virtualization platform that implements the standard to correctly install and run the virtual machines…
Other vendors will embrace this new format in the next few months. First one is Enomalism which announced its support:
Enomalism Inc today announced the support of the Open Virtual Format (OVF) specification submitted by leading virtualization companies targeting an industry standard format for portable virtual machines.
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Using Enomalism OVF package management interface with our VMcasting technology, the Enomalism dashboard automates the process of installing, upgrading, configuring, and removing software packages. Enomalism VMcasting technology uses RSS feeds to deliver updates and release notes directly to deployed virtual systems…
Anyway doesn’t seem Microsoft will start using this new format as its main one anytime soon: the company announced a major interoperability partnership with Citrix on its VHD format.