Which Virtual Appliance do you like the best?/use the most?

[RAV TUX]

1. VMware (R) Virtual Appliance
2. VMware (R) ESX Server Virtual Appliance
3. Microsoft (R) VHD Virtual Appliance
4. Xen Enterprise Virtual Appliance
5. Virtual Iron Virtual Appliance
6. Amazon Machine Image
7. virtual pc, virtual machine, and virtualization solutions by Parallels
8. none of the above, I only test using a "Demo CD/DVD (Live CD/DVD)"
9. none of the above, I only use a "Installable CD/DVD"
10. This is where "other" comes in, or some kind of random rambling

[RAV TUX]

Interesting, no one here uses Virtual Appliances?

[Alterax]

I use them; it just says I can't vote.

I'm using VMware server myself, good for test boxes (and occasionally for virtualizing test networks).

--Alterax

[slimdog360]

the virtual blender is the best of the lot

[maniacmusician]

what the hell is a virtual appliance? do you mean a virtual machine?

[RAV TUX]

what the hell is a virtual appliance? do you mean a virtual machine?

Nope, I mean Virtual Appliance.


A virtual appliance is a minimalist virtual machine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_machine) image designed to run under Parallels (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallels%2C_Inc.), VMware (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VMware), Xen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xen), Microsoft Virtual PC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Virtual_PC), QEMU (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QEMU), Usermode Linux (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usermode_Linux), CoLinux (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CoLinux), Virtual Iron (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Iron), VirtualBox (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VirtualBox) or other virtualization technology.
Virtual appliances are a subset of the broader class of software appliances (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_Appliance). Like software appliances, virtual appliances are aimed to eliminate the installation, configuration and maintenance costs associated with running complex stacks of software.
A key concept that differentiates a virtual appliance from a virtual machine is that a virtual appliance is a fully pre-installed and pre-configured application and operating system environment whereas a virtual machine is, by itself, without application software.
Typically a virtual appliance will have a web interface to configure the inner workings of the appliance. A virtual appliance is usually built to host a single application, and so represents a new way of deploying network applications.
As an example, the MediaWiki software that powers Wikipedia is available as a virtual appliance (http://wiki.rpath.com/wiki/Appliance:MediaWiki_Appliance). This appliance contains all the necessary software, including operating system, database and MediaWiki, to run a wiki installation as a "black box".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_appliance

[noah.tsali]

My 2 cents:

from what I can read, and according to one guru-type friend, XEN is the cat's meow.

Unfortunately, I'll never know because HP Pavillion AMD 64 desktops have a certain feature

that is PERMANANTLY DISABLED in the BIOS or on the Chipset, and therefore XEN cannot run

natively...You can google

XEN install instructions and it will tell you to grep for one little three letter accronymn that will

not show up if you are using this type of HP Desktop Pavillion AMD64 3800+ chip. Nonetheless, I

have had success running VMWare virtual appliance, but had trouble with an occasional crash. I

was hoping that someone here would know another place to download a more updated simple

web browsing virtual appliance. VMWare has only one internet appliance based on old pre 6.06 LTS code

[AndyCooll]

I voted other since the nearest I come to using virtualisation is VirtualBox, though guessing from your list this type of image isn't what you're talking about in your definition of "vitualisation".

:cool:

[ghost_ryder35]

i'm a big VMware fan, trying my hand in VirtualBox right now but it doesnt seem to want to work with my router. Anyone know the ports that need to be forwarded for VirtualBox to allow the VM's to get online. VM'ing with no internet sucks ;) +1 VMware

[scxtt]

port forwarding only applies to incoming connections that are going through your router ... if you can't get out, there's something else going on ... i don't use virtualbox, but i imagine they have Bridged &/or NAT networking for VMs ...