Open Virtualization Format
| Open Virtualization Format | |
|---|---|
| Filename extensions |
ovf, ova |
| Internet media type | application/ovf |
| Initial release | V1.0.0 (September 2008; 17 years ago (2008-09)) |
| Latest release | 2.1.1 August 2015; 10 years ago (2015-08) |
| Contained by | ova |
| Website | www |
Open Virtualization Format (OVF) is an open standard for packaging and distributing virtual appliances or, more generally, software to be run in virtual machines.
The standard describes an "open, secure, portable, efficient and extensible format for the packaging and distribution of software to be run in virtual machines". The OVF standard is not tied to any particular hypervisor or instruction set architecture. The unit of packaging and distribution is a so-called OVF Package which may contain one or more virtual systems each of which can be deployed to a virtual machine.
History
[edit ]In September 2007 VMware, Dell, HP, IBM, Microsoft and XenSource submitted to the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) a proposal for OVF, then named "Open Virtual Machine Format".[1]
The DMTF subsequently released the OVF Specification V1.0.0 as a preliminary standard in September, 2008, and V1.1.0 in January, 2010.[2] In January 2013, DMTF released the second version of the standard, OVF 2.0 which applies to emerging cloud use cases and provides important developments from OVF 1.0 including improved network configuration support and package encryption capabilities for safe delivery.
ANSI has ratified OVF 1.1.0 as ANSI standard INCITS 469-2010.[3]
OVF 1.1 was adopted in August 2011 by ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 38 of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) as an International Standard ISO/IEC 17203.[4]
OVF 2.0 brings an enhanced set of capabilities to the packaging of virtual machines, making the standard applicable to a broader range of cloud use cases that are emerging as the industry enters the cloud era. The most significant improvements include support for network configuration along with the ability to encrypt the package to ensure safe delivery.[5]
Design
[edit ]An OVF package consists of several files placed in one directory. An OVF package always contains exactly one OVF descriptor (a file with extension .ovf). The OVF descriptor is an XML file which describes the packaged virtual machine; it contains the metadata for the OVF package, such as name, hardware requirements, references to the other files in the OVF package and human-readable descriptions. In addition to the OVF descriptor, the OVF package will typically contain one or more disk images, and optionally certificate files and other auxiliary files.[6]
The entire directory can be distributed as an Open Virtual Appliance (OVA) package, which is a tar archive file with the OVF directory inside.
Industry support
[edit ]OVF has generally been broadly accepted.[7] Several virtualization players in the industry have announced support for OVF.[8] [9] [10] [11]
| Virtualization platform | OVF support since | Release date |
|---|---|---|
| VirtualBox | 2.2.0[12] | April 2009 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization | 2.2[13] | March 2010 |
| VMware | ESX 3.5, Workstation 6.5, Player 3.1,[14] [15] Fusion 4.0 [16] | Dec 2007 |
| XenServer | 5.6[17] or XenConvert before that | May 2010 |
| IBM Power server AIX, Linux z/VM, IBM Systems Director (via VMControl Enterprise Edition plug-in, a cross-platform VM manager)[18] [19] [20] | ||
| IBM SmartCloud | IBM SmartCloud Enterprise 1.4[21] | Oct 2011 |
| Oracle VM | 3.0[22] | Aug 2011 |
| rPath | 4.0[23] | c.2008 |
| SUSE Studio [24] | Oct 2010 | |
| Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager | 2012[25] | 2012? |
| Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud [26] | ||
| Proxmox VE [27] | 5.0 [28] | Sep 2017 |
| Google Cloud Platform [29] | Jan 2020 |
See also
[edit ]References
[edit ]- ^ "DMTF Press Release on OVF submission 9/2007". Archived from the original on 2008年09月16日. Retrieved 2008年09月28日.
- ^ "DMTF Published Documents page". Archived from the original on 2008年07月03日. Retrieved 2008年09月28日.
- ^ "INCITS 469-2010 Information Technology - Open Virtualization Format (OVF) Specification".
- ^ "DMTF Gains International Recognition with Two ISO/IEC Standards" . Retrieved 2013年02月04日.
- ^ "OVF 2.0 FAQ". DMTF.org.
- ^ "Open Virtualization Format Specification, V1.10" (PDF). Retrieved 2012年03月16日.
- ^ "techtarget.com article about OVF, 9/2008". Archived from the original on 2008年09月19日. Retrieved 2008年09月28日.
- ^ "DMTF press release on VMAN Initiative, 9/2008". Archived from the original on 2008年09月28日. Retrieved 2008年09月28日.
- ^ "Fortisphere embraces OVF, 9/2008" . Retrieved 2008年09月28日.
- ^ "Citrix Systems Unveils Project Kensho for Easy Creation of Hypervisor-Independent Application Workloads, 7/2008". Archived from the original on 2012年06月30日. Retrieved 2008年07月15日.
- ^ "Microsoft Responds to Citrix OVF Standard, 7/2008". Archived from the original on 2009年09月27日. Retrieved 2008年07月17日.
- ^ "VirtualBox changelog" . Retrieved 2009年04月13日.
- ^ "Red Hat Announces Beta Availability of Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization 2.2". Red Hat News. 2010年03月29日. Archived from the original on 2010年04月01日. Retrieved 2010年03月29日.
- ^ "Open Virtualization Format (OVF) -Virtual Machines - Virtualization". Vmware.com. Archived from the original on 2011年12月07日. Retrieved 2011年12月09日.
- ^ "VMware Workstation 7.1 Release Notes". Vmware.com. Archived from the original on 2011年11月26日. Retrieved 2011年12月09日.
- ^ "VMware Fusion 4.0 Release Notes". VMware. 2011年09月14日. Retrieved 2020年05月21日.
- ^ "XenServer 5.6 Release Notes". Archived from the original on 2015年04月05日. Retrieved 2010年05月27日.
- ^ "IBM Redbooks | IBM Systems Director VMControl Implementation Guide on IBM Power Systems". Redbooks.ibm.com. 2011年04月06日. Retrieved 2011年12月09日.
- ^ 5765-EMP IBM Systems Director VMControl Enterprise Edition for Power Systems, IBM United States Sales Manual Revised: April 13, 2010.
- ^ "IBM Director v6.1.x". Publib.boulder.ibm.com. Retrieved 2011年12月09日.[permanent dead link ]
- ^ Wu C F, Wang Y S, Liu G N, Amies, A, 2012, Create solutions on IBM SmartCloud Enterprise: Transfer image assets between different accounts Archived 2012年06月15日 at the Wayback Machine IBM developerWorks, June 6.
- ^ "What's new in Oracle VM 3.0" (PDF).
- ^ "Images". Archived from the original on 2011年12月21日.
- ^ "SUSE Studio". Archived from the original on 2010年10月13日. Retrieved 2012年09月24日.
- ^ "TechNet". 9 September 2016.
- ^ "EC2 VM Import/Export Image Formats".
- ^ "Add new qm command 'importovf', to create VMs from an OVF manifest".
- ^ "qemu-server package changelog". Archived from the original on 2018年03月09日. Retrieved 2020年04月25日.
- ^ "Import virtual appliances".
External links
[edit ]- Official website
- DMTF OVF Whitepaper
- VMware OVF Whitepaper Archived 2022年06月15日 at the Wayback Machine