An appliance is the combination of metadata describing the virtual machine plus the virtual disks. The standard format in the virtualization industry is OVF. Basically, differs from VMX+VMDK(s) because it has a XML format that describes the virtual machine (and little bit its environment like firewalling, policies, etc...). <div>
<br></div><div>VMX is VMware specific, and OVF is vendor agnostic (or should be...). From my perspective VMX + VMDK(s) is not an appliance format, but this is the kind of topic for a long discussion ;-)</div><div><br></div>
<div>If you are looking for a simple way to describe the virtual machine parameters for an appliance, check OVF specs to get some inspiration. I think OVF full spec is overkill because the simpler approach of Nova.</div>
<div>
<br></div><div>Diego</div><div><br></div><div>-<br>Diego Parrilla<div><a href="http://nubeblog.com" target="_blank">nubeblog.com</a> | <a href="mailto:nubeblog@nubeblog.com" target="_blank">nubeblog@nubeblog.com</a> | <a href="http://twitter.com/nubeblog" target="_blank">twitter.com/nubeblog</a></div>
<div>+34 649 94 43 29 </div><div><br></div><br>
<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Jan 13, 2011 at 3:32 PM, Jay Pipes <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:jaypipes@gmail.com">jaypipes@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<div class="im">On Wed, Jan 12, 2011 at 5:33 PM, Ewan Mellor <<a href="mailto:Ewan.Mellor@eu.citrix.com">Ewan.Mellor@eu.citrix.com</a>> wrote:<br>
> Is there a name for the .vmx + .vmdk combination (i.e. a normal VMware VM format)? Maybe just "VMX" as an appliance format?<br>
<br>
</div>Sorry for the probably ignorant question here (I'm pretty ignorant to<br>
a lot of the virtualization details :( ). From Googling, it seems that<br>
the VMX file is merely a configuration file fed to vmware along with a<br>
VMDK when creating a virtual machine. Is this considered an appliance<br>
format? Thanks in advance,<br>
<font color="#888888"><br>
-jay<br>
</font><div><div></div><div class="h5"><br>
><br>
>> -----Original Message-----<br>
>> From: John Purrier [mailto:<a href="mailto:john@openstack.org">john@openstack.org</a>]<br>
>> Sent: 10 January 2011 08:59<br>
>> To: 'Jay Pipes'<br>
>> Cc: Ewan Mellor; <a href="mailto:openstack@lists.launchpad.net">openstack@lists.launchpad.net</a><br>
>> Subject: RE: [Openstack] Glance x-image-meta-type raw vs machine<br>
>><br>
>> Jay, this makes a lot of sense. For disk formats I would suggest: VHD,<br>
>> VDI, VMDK, RAW, & QCOW2. For the appliance formats: OVF, OVA, & AMI.<br>
>><br>
>> Conversion within Glance will need to be able to handle both disk image<br>
>> conversion and appliance format conversion.<br>
>><br>
>> John<br>
>><br>
>> -----Original Message-----<br>
>> From: Jay Pipes [mailto:<a href="mailto:jaypipes@gmail.com">jaypipes@gmail.com</a>]<br>
>> Sent: Monday, January 10, 2011 10:26 AM<br>
>> To: John Purrier<br>
>> Cc: Ewan Mellor; <a href="mailto:openstack@lists.launchpad.net">openstack@lists.launchpad.net</a><br>
>> Subject: Re: [Openstack] Glance x-image-meta-type raw vs machine<br>
>><br>
>> And I think we need to come to an agreement on the terms used here...<br>
>><br>
>> What is a "type" of virtual image? Do we mean a *disk* image format?<br>
>> Do we mean a *metadata envelope* type (OVF, AMI, etc)? Do we mean some<br>
>> "type" of system image or image part (kernel, ramdisk, etc)?<br>
>><br>
>> What Glance is serving/registering is really called a *virtual<br>
>> appliance*, as described in this article:<br>
>> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_appliance" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_appliance</a><br>
>><br>
>> Proposal:<br>
>><br>
>> Change the Image model to have these following fields, instead of the<br>
>> existing "type" column:<br>
>><br>
>> disk_format -- choice between ('VHD', 'VDI', 'VMDK')<br>
>> appliance_file_format -- choice between ('AMI','OVF')<br>
>><br>
>> Thoughts?<br>
>> -jay<br>
>><br>
>> On Mon, Jan 10, 2011 at 11:11 AM, John Purrier <<a href="mailto:john@openstack.org">john@openstack.org</a>><br>
>> wrote:<br>
>> > My 2 cents... We need to define a transport-neutral specification<br>
>> that allows us to encapsulate and copy/move a variety of virtual image<br>
>> formats, this should be based on OVF. The envelope can contain both the<br>
>> actual image as well as any required meta-data.<br>
>> ><br>
>> > The image elements specified are very AMI specific, we should<br>
>> generalize to be able to indicate the type of virtual image (i.e. AMI,<br>
>> VHD, etc.). A test for POC can be a service that takes the data in the<br>
>> OVF or what is stored in Glance to convert between formats. If we do<br>
>> this correctly all of the required data will be available at the<br>
>> correct point in the flow.<br>
>> ><br>
>> > Don't know if this is directly applicable to the discussion point<br>
>> below, but it is important that we get the fundamental<br>
>> design/architecture concepts in place moving forward.<br>
>> ><br>
>> > John<br>
>> ><br>
>> > -----Original Message-----<br>
>> > From: openstack-bounces+john=<a href="http://openstack.org" target="_blank">openstack.org</a>@<a href="http://lists.launchpad.net" target="_blank">lists.launchpad.net</a><br>
>> [mailto:<a href="mailto:openstack-bounces%2Bjohn">openstack-bounces+john</a>=<a href="http://openstack.org" target="_blank">openstack.org</a>@<a href="http://lists.launchpad.net" target="_blank">lists.launchpad.net</a>] On<br>
>> Behalf Of Jay Pipes<br>
>> > Sent: Monday, January 10, 2011 9:44 AM<br>
>> > To: Ewan Mellor<br>
>> > Cc: <a href="mailto:openstack@lists.launchpad.net">openstack@lists.launchpad.net</a><br>
>> > Subject: Re: [Openstack] Glance x-image-meta-type raw vs machine<br>
>> ><br>
>> > On Sat, Jan 1, 2011 at 7:30 PM, Ewan Mellor<br>
>> <<a href="mailto:Ewan.Mellor@eu.citrix.com">Ewan.Mellor@eu.citrix.com</a>> wrote:<br>
>> >> What is the intended semantics of the Glance x-image-meta-type<br>
>> header values<br>
>> >> “raw” vs “machine”?<br>
>> ><br>
>> > When we pulled the Image model from Nova into Glance, there was a<br>
>> > field "image_type" that was limited to the strings "raw", "machine",<br>
>> > "kernel", and "ramdisk".<br>
>> ><br>
>> > I'm open to changing this or using something like a "format" field<br>
>> > (AMI vs OVF, etc..)<br>
>> ><br>
>> > Thoughts?<br>
>> ><br>
>> > -jay<br>
>> ><br>
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><br>
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