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The OVF is portable and extensible in the sense that it allows adding features and customization by the DMTF or a third party. It defines the compatibility and optimization requirements of virtual appliances and allows VM distribution at a large scale. The OVF is a vendor and platform independent standardized distribution format for virtual appliances.
To tackle this issue, the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) created the Open Virtualization Format (OVF) in 2008. The lack of interoperability uncovered the need for a standard distribution format for virtual appliances. This is because different virtualization platforms use different VM image formats. The variety of virtualization platforms used by various Cloud providers has hindered interoperability between virtual appliances, and has restricted the migration of applications and VMIs across Cloud platforms. This also improves the application’s portability and allows workload migration. Packaging applications in the form of virtual machine desk images can facilitate the distribution, installation, configuration, management, and execution of applications under an optimal VM platform. The software stack consists of a set of pre-configured applications, the guest OS, middleware, libraries, containers, and all of the other required software, while the metadata represents information that can assist in the deployment and execution process of the VMI on the VM platform for example, the support hardware needed to run the VMI (e.g., number of CPUs), the configuration variables (e.g., IP Address), and image constraints (e.g., 99.9% available). A VMI is a self-contained package that consists of a software stack and metadata. Mohammad Hamdaqa, Ladan Tahvildari, in Advances in Computers, 2012 4.6.3 Virtual AppliancesĪ virtual appliance is a Virtual Machine Image (VMI) that is designed and packaged to be deployed on a VM platform.