What is involved in making an appliance?

[IT_Architect]

I downloaded the Studio 1.0. The first thing I noticed is the license says the only thing I can make with it is developer tools. So that means people are using something else. Let's say you have a VM that you like that you want to turn into an appliance, whether it's a full OS and web server with mail, or something small like a load balancer, whether you want to sell it, or give it away. What do you do to do that? What tools do you use? How easy is it?

[Troy_Clavell]

if you have an existing VM, isn't it as simple as higlighting it and exporting it as a virtual appliance?

[IT_Architect]

if you have an existing VM, isn't it as simple as higlighting it and exporting it as a virtual appliance?

Maybe. I'll see once. That would be perfect.

Thanks!

[Troy_Clavell · Accepted solution]

hightlight the VM in question and power it off. Go to the top on your vCenter Client, choose filevirtual applianceexport

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[IT_Architect]

>hightlight the VM in question and power it off. Go to the top on your vCenter Client, choose filevirtual applianceexport<

It tries to write it to a CD with an error message after that says: The export format does not support the backing of this device.

[Troy_Clavell]

you have nothing attached to the CD/DVD drive? I just test this yesterday and it works great. I'm running vCenter 3.5U3 and ESX 3.5U3

[brugh]

i would check this post: http://communities.vmware.com/message/871331. just installing an OS and calling it an appliance isn't enough..

[IT_Architect]

>you have nothing attached to the CD/DVD drive? I just test this yesterday and it works great.<

True. I'll have to think about how to do that. It's bigger than a CD. I just want a copy so I can re-use it and don't need to re-install and OS over and over again.