Punching Clouds

With the release of the vSphere platform, VMware has most definitely brought some incredible new features to the table uch as vApps, a tool that allows users to package multi-tier applications and manage them as if they were a single object from the vCenter inventory.

If  you’re associated with an ISV, or someone interested in creating such applications, or just someone interested in developing Virtual Appliances, you probably have questions along the lines of how do I go about creating applications to be deployed in a vApp or a Virtual Appliance, how do I develop these applications and package them in the right format, and what tools are available to aid the development of such applications?  Well VMware has the solution for what you need: VMware Studio 2.0. The beta of the product is now available for download from their community site.

VMware Studio 2.0 will provide the tools needed to create and package Virtual Appliances and vApps, some of the new features are:

• Create vApps (multi-VM virtual appliances or a combination of multi-VM or multi-virtual appliances as a single unit) in OVF1.0 format. This OVF package can be published to VMware vCenter Server for ease of deployment and management with guaranteed service levels on VMware vSphere.
• Windows 2003 and 2008 Server (32 bit and 64 bit), SLES 10.2, RHEL 5.2 and 5.3, CentOS 5.2 and 5.3 (64 bit), Ubuntu 8.0.4.1, and others supported as Guest Operating Systems.
• VMware Studio 2.0 available as a plug-in, in Eclipse.
• Add in-guest components for management of virtual appliances or vApps.
• Ability to add partially or fully-created virtual machines as input; VMware Studio can use the VMs in the build process.
• VMware ESX/ESXi 3.5, VMware ESX/ESXi 4.0, VMware Server 2.0, VMware Workstation 6.5.1 enabled as provisioning engines

All of these features will surely be great assets for you virtualization developers.  So get in gear and go to the community site to register for the beta VMware Studio 2.0.