Configuring the Appropriate Appliance Output and Type for VMware-Based Virtual Appliances
InstallAnywhere 2020
For VMware-based virtual appliances, there are three output options:
|
•
|
OVF 1.1 format—Contains the VM disk files and the OVF descriptor in a single directory. |
|
•
|
OVA format—The OVF 1.1 format output is archived as a tar file, which enables easier distribution of the virtual appliance. |
|
•
|
Both—The virtual appliance output is provided in both OVF 1.1 and OVA formats. This option will consume a larger amount of disk space. |
Note • InstallAnywhere does not have support for using manifest files and for signing OVA packages.
For VMware-based virtual appliances, there are two appliance types:
|
•
|
VMware vCenter and vSphere-compatible appliances—Appliance is deployed in OVF 1.1 format on a licensed VMware vSphere server which is managed by a licensed VMware vCenter. This appliance will get deployed as a pure virtual appliance and will have its own resource pool. Such virtual appliances are also capable of having multiple virtual machines under the appliance. |
|
•
|
VMware vSphere-compatible appliances—Appliance is also deployed in OVF 1.1 format on a licensed or free version of VMware vSphere, which may or may not be managed by a VMware vCenter. This appliance will be deployed as a single virtual machine. |
Note • In some cases, you may want to host the disk files in OVF format on the Internet and just supply the OVF descriptor file to your customers. In this scenario, you will need to manually update the OVF with the hosted location of the disk files. The VMware client that deploys this OVF will automatically download the required disks from the Internet and proceed to deploy the appliance.
Open topic with navigation