Exporting a virtual machine
A virtual machine can be packaged for transport. vSphere provides a method to do so, by exporting a virtual machine in an open virtual machine format (OVF), which is an open standard developed by the distributed management task force (DMTF) with cooperation from VMware, Citrix, IBM, Microsoft, Sun, and other companies.
There are two formats for packaging a virtual machine and its files:
OVF (open virtualization format)
OVA (open virtualization archive)
Read the How it works section of the following recipe to understand the difference between the two formats.
How to do it...
The following procedure explains how to export a virtual machine to OVA or OVF format:
Right-click on the VM and navigate to All vCenter Actions | Export OVF Template....
In the Export OVF Template window, provide a name for the template, choose an export folder and export format, and then click on OK to initiate the export.
How it works...
The OVF will package all of the virtual machine files into a...
