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Virtual Machine File Format Competition

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2006-04-24

Virtualization is the latest hot technology, and the main players are all trying to get their file formats to be the standard.

I have high hopes for using virtualization for digital preservation. You can save a complete environment with all the tools/fonts/drivers/etc for a piece of software.

Having documented VM file formats is a great sign.

• Information Week article on Microsoft opening up the .VHD file format (with quotes from Steve Ballmer!)
• Computer Reseller News article on Xen licensing Microsoft's VHD format
• Page to request VMWare's VMDK format
• Page to request Microsoft's VHD format
• Virtualization.Info's Industry Roadmap - this is a pretty comprehensive look at what's been going on.
• VMBlog - a blog focused on virtualization and another good place to find links to the various players

Tags: standard vm

File Formats: VHD VMDK