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April 10, 2006
VMware Intros Open Virtual Machine Disk Format Specification
VMware's virtual machine disk format specification for
defining and formatting virtual machine environments is now openly
available, downloadable and free of charge. This will enable use by all
developers, software vendors and projects and includes open licensing
compatible with those operating under open source licenses such as the
GPL. In addition, VMware is committed to supporting any other open
virtual machine disk formats broadly adopted by customers and working
toward converging on open standards in this area.
"Encouraging the use of a common virtual machine disk format should
lead to better interoperability across the industry. VMware's
initiative to open up its virtual machine disk format -- a format that
already is widely used in the industry -- is an important development
in the virtualization space and will benefit customers and ISVs alike,"
said Al Gillen, research director of system software at IDC. "We see
the broad use of a common virtual machine disk format leading to more
products to choose from, along with interoperability across customers'
environments."
A virtual machine encapsulates an entire server or desktop
environment in a file. The virtual machine disk format specification
describes and documents the virtual machine environment and how it is
stored. Patch, provisioning, security, management, backup and other
infrastructure solutions for virtual machine environments all heavily
depend on the virtual machine disk format. Based on this dependency,
having an open and unrestricted virtual machine disk format is critical
to the broad-based development of new solutions and value-add for
virtual environments.
"VMware is offering our virtual machine disk format openly and
freely to the virtualization industry," said Brian Byun, vice president
of products and alliances at VMware. "We are doing so because we
believe open and freely- useable specifications should increase the
availability of complementary products, provide customers unfettered
choice and increased interoperability in their virtualized IT
environments and further expand the virtualization market which is good
for VMware."
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