With the rapid adoption of virtualization, there is a great need for a standard way to package and distribute virtual machines. VMware and other leaders in the virtualization field have created the Open Virtualization Format (OVF), a platform independent, efficient, extensible, and open packaging and distribution format for virtual machines.
OVF enables efficient, flexible, and secure distribution of enterprise software, facilitating the mobility of virtual machines and giving customers vendor and platform independence. Customers can deploy an OVF formatted virtual machine on the virtualization platform of their choice.
With OVF, customers’ experience with virtualization is greatly enhanced, with more portability, platform independence, verification, signing, versioning, and licensing terms. OVF lets you:
Enables optimized distribution- OVF enables the portability and distribution of virtual appliances. In addition to support for compression for more efficient package transfers, OVF supports industry standard content verification and integrity checking, and provides a basic scheme for the management of software licensing.
OVF enables efficient, flexible, and secure distribution of enterprise software, facilitating the mobility of virtual machines and giving customers vendor and platform independence. Customers can deploy an OVF formatted virtual machine on the virtualization platform of their choice.
With OVF, customers’ experience with virtualization is greatly enhanced, with more portability, platform independence, verification, signing, versioning, and licensing terms. OVF lets you:
- Improve your user experience with streamlined installations
- Offer customers virtualization platform independence and flexiblity
- Create complex pre-configured multi-tiered services more easily
- Efficiently deliver enterprise software through portable virtual machines
- Offer platform-specific enhancements and easier adoption of advances in virtualization through extensibility
Package and Distribute OVF-Formatted Virtual Machines
The Open Virtualization Format (OVF) describes an open, secure, portable, efficient, and flexible format for the packaging and distribution of one or more virtual machines. Key features and benefits of OVF:Enables optimized distribution- OVF enables the portability and distribution of virtual appliances. In addition to support for compression for more efficient package transfers, OVF supports industry standard content verification and integrity checking, and provides a basic scheme for the management of software licensing.
More Here
Courtesy:http://www.vmware.com/appliances/getting-started/learn/ovf.html