What are Virtual Appliances?
Virtual appliances are revolutionizing the way enterprise software is developed, deployed, and managed. Customers can easily install and deploy virtual appliances for pre-integrated solution stacks that speed up time to value and simplify software management. Download a Virtual Appliance.
Virtual Appliance OverviewVirtual appliances are pre-built, pre-configured, ready-to-run enterprise applications packaged along with an operating system inside a virtual machine. Virtual appliances are fundamentally changing how enterprise software is developed, distributed, and managed. ISVs develop for a single platform, reducing the cost and complexity of software development and management. ISVs can then efficiently and securely distribute the Virtual Appliance in an industry-standard OVF format. Customers receive pre-configured, self-contained, and optimized application stacks that are easy to deploy and manage. Because the Virtual Appliance is packaged using OVF, customers can deploy the same virtual appliance on a virtualization platform of their choice thus giving them the ultimate freedom of choice to deploy a virtualization platform based on price and functionality and not be locked into one platform. Why Deploy a Virtual Appliance?Deploying software as a virtual appliance makes installing and managing software easy. With virtual appliances, installing, configuring, and maintaining enterprise software is simplified, resulting in a better customer experience. |
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VMware Infrastructure automatically validates the integrity of a virtual appliance to ensure it is not corrupted during the download process. Because the ISV updates and maintains the virtual appliance and serves as the single point of contact for the integrated solution, customer support costs are lower. Customers will spend more time using the application and less time installing, configuring, patching, and managing. Because virtual appliances are hosted onsite in a customer’s data center, customers can feel comfortable that their applications and data are secure. Use virtual appliances to roll out standardized application stacks to remote offices worldwide in minutes. Get started deploying virtual appliances today to experience the benefits of this innovative method of software delivery. |
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Why Build a Virtual Appliance?
Virtual appliances are a revolutionary step in software delivery. Building and deploying software as a virtual appliance eliminates many of the stumbling blocks associated with traditional software development and distribution.
With a virtual appliance, software developers can now ship pre-installed, pre-configured, standard solutions that enable end-users to literally plug applications into their environments with minimal effort. Virtual appliances allow hardware appliance vendors to eliminate the need for 3rd party hardware platforms, thereby reducing complexity, decreasing time to market, and providing more scalable and robust solutions. By packaging virtual appliances in the platform independent, extensible, and localizable Open Virtual Machine Format, ISVs can create a single pre-packaged appliance that can run on any hypervisor. IT organizations can also package standard solution stacks as well as custom-built software into virtual appliances for immediate and hassle free deployment of enterprise applications to remote and branch offices worldwide.
Not only does this decrease the time it takes customers to get software up and running, but it also decreases potential support issues related to incorrectly configured software or hardware. Users can simply download your virtual appliance and run it on any VMware virtualization platform. Virtual appliances can be used to distribute both evaluation and production software.
