| Open Virtualization Format | |
|---|---|
| Filename extensions | ovf, ova |
| Internet media type | application/ovf |
| Initial release | V1.0.0 (September 2008; 16 years ago (2008-09)) |
| Latest release | 2.1.1 August 2015; 9 years ago (2015-08) |
| Contained by | ova |
| Website | www |
Open Virtualization Format (OVF) is anopen standard for packaging and distributingvirtual appliances or, more generally,software to be run invirtual machines.
The standard describes an "open, secure, portable, efficient and extensible format for the packaging and distribution of software to be run invirtual machines". The OVF standard is not tied to any particularhypervisor orinstruction set architecture. The unit of packaging and distribution is a so-calledOVF Package which may contain one or morevirtual systems each of which can be deployed to a virtual machine.
In September 2007VMware,Dell,HP,IBM,Microsoft andXenSource submitted to theDistributed 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 byISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 38 of theInternational Organization for Standardization (ISO) and theInternational 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]
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 themetadata 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 moredisk images, and optionallycertificate files and other auxiliary files.[6]
The entire directory can be distributed as anOpen Virtual Appliance (OVA) package, which is atar archive file with the OVF directory inside.
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 | |
| MicrosoftSystem 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 |
