I work on a product that is sold on a physical appliance. One of the things that our build does is to produce a bootable ISO that will partition, format, install an OS (not one supported by VMWare Studio), and install our application code. We are now considering the implications of a Virtual Appliance. I have successfully created a new VM, booted it from our ISO, ran the install, and then exported the VM as an OVA file.

I would like to know if there is any way that I can use VMWare Studio or any other VMWare product to automate that process as part of our build.

I understand that VMWare Studio limits the OS's that it supports in order to be able to customize the resulting VM's, but I already have a complete install script that supports silent install. So I don't need any of the OS control that VMWare Studio offers. I would simply like to create a VM, load it with my own ISO, and create an OVA from that, without having to do all the steps manually.

Any information or advice would be greatly appreciated.