Re: [Xen-API] Open Virtual Appliance preview

[Anthony Liguori <aliguori@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Ewan,

I spent some time reading the spec this afternoon.  Here's my initial 
reaction.
Overall, I'm rather keen on this concept.  A format for describing a 
virtual machine such that it's easy to deploy as an appliance.  I think 
what you've come up with is quite good as a first cut but I'm slightly 
concerned that it's a tad over specific.  In general, I think this is 
bound to happen anytime you try to specify first before implementing and 
having users.
So before I get into specifics, what are the plans moving forward?  I 
think if we approached this as a guideline and attempted to build a 
system for Xen that worked with these OVA packages, it would be a good 
way to validate the spec (which could then be finalized).  Thoughts?
I'm a little confused as to whether the intention is to build images 
that will run on any hypervisor or that run on a specific hypervisor.  
If it is the later (which it seems to be), then what is the value in 
standardizing since there is no compatibility?
This brings me to the vbd description for Xen.  device="sda1" is a 
concerning example as we shouldn't be using things other than xvd for 
paravirt domains.  This brings up a practical question of whether these 
sort of things should be insulted from the developer to begin with?  
Thoughts?
I think the property system is a noble attempt at solving a pretty hard 
problem.  However, I don't think it will be sufficient for very long.  
Users are going to want GUIs and I suspect that means we need to think a 
little harder about this problem.
The script stuff is a little odd.  The script gets it's own VM?  With 
Perl?  Seriously? ;-)
The security stuff is interesting but I don't know enough about whether 
that will be acceptable to vendors.  Have you gotten an initial reaction 
yet?
The rendevous section was a little odd too.  I think it presupposes that 
each VM is going to have one network device (which is a bad 
assumption).  Also, putting IPs in XenStore seems like a bad idea.  
There are so many ways to do network identification, why reinvent the wheel?
All-in-all, I'm quite impressed.  I think there's a lot of potential 
here.  Thanks for pulling this together!
Regards,

Anthony Liguori

Ewan Mellor wrote:
> Attached is a preview of the Open Virtual Appliance specification.  We've been
> working on this for a little while now, and it's ready to open up to wider
> discussion and collaboration.
>
> The intention here is to produce a transport format for a Virtual Appliance --
> a collection of virtual machines that together, from the customer's point of
> view, provide a single useful facility.
>
> This document has a restrictive licence and disclaimer, which we've put on
> whilst it is being reviewed.  When released, the document and the
> specification will have some form of free document licence, possibly the GNU
> FDL, with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover
> Texts.
>
> Your comments are more than welcome.
>
> Ewan.
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> xen-api mailing list
> xen-api@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> http://lists.xensource.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/xen-api
_______________________________________________
xen-api mailing list
xen-api@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.xensource.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/xen-api