Common disk formats already exist, VHD and VMDK, so that is not the issue, the issue is disk encapsulation. Want the option to migrate VM, but not have to encode and decode the VM disks since they are already in the correct or common location. Others have tried this, in fact, I have tried tricking the OVF import application/tools from VMware to do this, but direct edit of the OVF files breaks the self validation method integrated into the OVF file format. So the logical next step is to get this concept integrated into the standard. Per my reasoning, theremore, there is no need for creating or establishing a common disk format since VHD and VMDK are sufficient for the migrations expected, so this feature would seem to be a very simple addition to OVF specification. The fact that a common datastore reference path feature does not already exist, is driven, by the fact that common disk formats would not exist, and yet they do, or if you will, not a common disk format but a format that is supported across multiple vendors.