VMware Virtual Appliances Community
Daryll
Expert
Expert

Welcome to the Ultimate Virtual Appliance Challenge Forum!

Are you up for the challenge?[/b]

Are you up for the challenge of creating the industry’s most innovative virtual appliance? VMware invites you to put your skills to the test, go head-to-head with your peers, and develop the best virtual appliance the industry has ever seen. Using open source or freely distributable components and/or your own code, create the most inventive and useful virtual appliance and win the $100,000 first prize! The Challenge is open to anyone worldwide and will be judged by a panel of industry experts with input from the community.

Entry information and Challenge rules[/b]

The rules and information on how to get entered into the challenge can be found at:

http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/challenge/rules.html

As always, anything related to the Ultimate Virtual Appliance Challenge can be posted here. Questions, comments, taunts, and the like!

Thanks to everyone!

The VMTN Team

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30 Replies
admin
Immortal
Immortal

Hi All,

Welcome to the Ultimate Virtual Appliance Challenge!

Since the launch of VMware Player, we have seen a tremendous interest in virtual appliances. One example of a very useful and popular virtual appliance is the Browser Appliance. Over 250,000 folks have downloaded this to safely and securely browse the internet. Not only are users downloading appliances from VMTN but they are also creating and sharing their own (see the community contributed section of VMTN). Just in the last several weeks, we have had over 40 appliances contributed by the community.

We wanted to foster innovation and reward folks for their effort and hence, the contest to create the ultimate virtual appliance. The total prize money is $200,000 USD with first prize worth $100,000 USD, second prize worth $50,000 USD and third prize worth $25,000 USD. In addition, there are five best-of-category awards worth $5,000 USD each. You can find out the contest rules and other information at: www.vmware.com/challenge.

We are also very excited about the judging panel. Dr. Mendel Rosenblum, co-founder and chief scientist at VMware will be chief judge/convener. Tim O'Reilly (founder of O'Reilly media) and Mark Shuttleworth (founder of Ubuntu Linux) have agreed to be on the panel. Dave Parsons, sr VP of engineering at ALG Software and a VMware customer for many years, is on the panel. Jason Brooks (eWeek) and Roger Howorth (IT Week) - both well known technology journalists - are also on the panel. Rounding out the panel is Stephen Elliot, research analyst at IDC.

Please use this forum to discuss any contest-related issues with your peers. VMware employees will monitor and try to answer as many questions as possible.

Good luck! This is going to be a fun contest and we can't wait to see the entries.

Best,

Srinivas

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Anders
Expert
Expert

Oh man! This is going to be great!

Sort of x-prize for virtual appliances... :smileygrin:

Could we have a "best from VMware" category that is not elegible for any prizes ?

\- Anders

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Alessandro_Peri
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I just had a terrible doubt!

Aren't prize money virtual too???

Alessandro Perilli, CISSP, MVP

http://www.alessandroperilli.com

Blogging about IT Security on http://www.securityzero.com

Blogging about Virtualization on http://www.virtualization.info

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tysonkey
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I've decided to signup for the challenge. Smiley Happy I've also putting details of my progress on my blog

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djc49939
Commander
Commander

I've got what I consider to be a great idea, but it involves MS software... so I couldn't redist it.

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tysonkey
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Some of my ideas involve MS software too Smiley Sad

But I'm sure there are alternatives.

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Ken_Cline
Champion
Champion

Perhaps BartPE or ReactOS could provide enough functionality for your solution??

Ken Cline VMware vExpert 2009 VMware Communities User Moderator Blogging at: http://KensVirtualReality.wordpress.com/
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larstr
Champion
Champion

I'm not so sure you can legally redistribute BartPE images. Atleast WinPE has some funky licensing and it's not free.

ReactOS is OTOH free.

Lars

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tysonkey
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Is VMware Tools prohibited from being distributed with the entries?

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admin
Immortal
Immortal

Hey there,

You can actually redistribute VMware Tools with the appliance. We specifically gave contestants the right to do this.

-Srinivas

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larstr
Champion
Champion

Welcome to the Ultimate Virtual Appliance Challenge!

/me is astonished and surprised every time VMware is hitting the market with such positive marketing efforts as we have seen the last few months.

Everytime they've been providing something that is too good to be true. Now, what could we possibly make to satisfy such a exclusive hand picked judging panel?

I guess this will create lots of buzz in the OSS community and a many entries. Something that will benefit all parts. Smiley Happy

Lars

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continuum
Immortal
Immortal

BartPE-images cannot be legally distributed either.

But what about self-creating scripts - that build a VM if a user supplies the MS-sources?


________________________________________________
Do you need support with a VMFS recovery problem ? - send a message via skype "sanbarrow"
I do not support Workstation 16 at this time ...

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djc49939
Commander
Commander

maybe... but I'm talking apps AND OS.

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rcardona2k
Immortal
Immortal

In the US, virtual assets and winnings are taxable.

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osde_info
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I thought we could redist VMware Tools anyway ? Please could you clarify VMware Tools licencing for VMplayer and VMserver

regards clive http://vizz.info
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tysonkey
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Where can you find a free FTP server with enough storage space for something as huge as a VM?

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AMcCreath
Commander
Commander

I got the impression they would host the ftp???

Let me know if you get stuck though I may be able to help

:smileygrin:

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admin
Immortal
Immortal

For the contest, we are going to host the viritual appliances using BitTorrent.

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tysonkey
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi, John, I can't remember actually seeing any mention of BitTorrent on the Challenge pages, it only said that you must put your appliance on an FTP server, or send it on a CD/DVD, to VMware's offices.

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