Open Stack

Hello Everyone!

We were discussing the following blueprint in Glance:
Enhanced-Platform-Awareness-OVF-Meta-Data-Import :https://review.openstack.org/#/c/104904/

The OVA format is very rich and the proposal here in its first incarnation is to essentially Untar the ova package, andimport the first disk image therein and parse the ovf file and attach meta data to the disk image.
There is a nova effort  in a similar vein that supports OVA, limiting its availability to the VMWare hypervisor. Our efforts will combine.

The issue that is raised is how many openstack users and OpenStack cloud providers tackle OVA data with multiple disk images, using them as an application.
Do your users using OVA with content other than 1 disk image + OVF? 
That is does it have other files that are used? Do any of you use OVAs with snapshot chains?
Would this solution path break your system, result in unhappy users?  


If the solution will at least address 50% of the use cases, a low bar, and ease deploying NFV applications, this would be worthy.
If so, how would we message around this so as not to imply that OpenStack supports OVA in its full glory?

Down the road the Artefacts blueprint will provide a place holder for OVA. Perhaps even the OVA format may be transformed into a Heat template to work in OpenStack.

Please do prov ide us your feedback.
Regards
Malini