VMDK
Encyclopedia
The VMDK file format
is a type of virtual appliance
developed for VMware
products. The format is open
/documented.
File format
A file format is a particular way that information is encoded for storage in a computer file.Since a disk drive, or indeed any computer storage, can store only bits, the computer must have some way of converting information to 0s and 1s and vice-versa. There are different kinds of formats for...
is a type of virtual appliance
Virtual appliance
A virtual appliance is a virtual machine image designed to run on a virtualization platform ....
developed for VMware
VMware
VMware, Inc. is a company providing virtualization software founded in 1998 and based in Palo Alto, California, USA. The company was acquired by EMC Corporation in 2004, and operates as a separate software subsidiary ....
products. The format is open
Open format
An open file format is a published specification for storing digital data, usually maintained by a standards organization, which can therefore be used and implemented by anyone. For example, an open format can be implementable by both proprietary and free and open source software, using the typical...
/documented.
Products that use the format
- VMware WorkstationVMware WorkstationVMware Workstation is a virtual machine software suite for x86 and x86-64 computers from VMware, a division of EMC Corporation, which allows users to set up multiple x86 and x86-64 virtual machines and use one or more of these virtual machines simultaneously with the hosting operating system...
- VMware PlayerVMware PlayerVMware Player is a freeware virtualization software package from VMware, Inc. . VMware Player can run virtual appliances. VMware Player can also create virtual machines since version 3.0...
- VMware ServerVMware ServerVMware Server is a free-of-charge virtualization-software server suite developed and supplied by VMware, Inc....
- VMware FusionVMware FusionVMware Fusion is a virtual machine software product developed by VMware for Macintosh computers with Intel processors. Fusion allows Intel-based Macs to run x86 and x86-64 "guest" operating systems, such as Microsoft Windows, Linux, NetWare and Solaris as virtual machines simultaneously with Mac OS...
- VMware ESXVMware ESXVMware ESX is an enterprise-level computer virtualization product offered by VMware, Inc. ESX is a component of VMware's larger offering, VMware Infrastructure, and adds management and reliability services to the core server product...
Third-party products with VMDK support
- Sun xVMSun xVMSun xVM is a product group from Sun Microsystems that addresses virtualization technology on x86 platforms.-History:Sun originally announced the xVM product family in October 2007 as a broader product line...
- natively supports VMDK format - QEMUQEMUQEMU is a processor emulator that relies on dynamic binary translation to achieve a reasonable speed while being easy to port on new host CPU architectures....
- natively supports VMDK format and provides the qemu-img utility to convert VMDK images to a number of different formats - VirtualBoxVirtualBoxOracle VM VirtualBox is an x86 virtualization software package, originally created by software company Innotek GmbH, purchased by Sun Microsystems, and now developed by Oracle Corporation as part of its family of virtualization products...
(part of the Oracle VM suite) also supports VMDK files - SUSE StudioSUSE StudioSUSE Studio is an online Linux image creation tool by Novell. Users can develop their own Linux OS, software appliance or virtual appliance, mainly choosing which applications and packages they want on their "custom" Linux and how it looks...
- builds virtual appliancesVirtual applianceA virtual appliance is a virtual machine image designed to run on a virtualization platform ....
using the VMDK format, among others
Software Libraries with VMDK support
- VMware VDDK - VMware's Virtual Disk Development Kit, freely available to anyone with a VMware.com account (has redistribution rights limited to certain VMWare partners)
- .NET DiscUtils.NET DiscUtils.NET DiscUtils is an open source .NET software library, hosted on Microsoft's CodePlex site for accessing and manipulating virtual disk images...
- Open Source C# library