Open Virtualization Format Specification (OVF). Which is a little talked about open standard developed for packaging and distributing virtual appliances (think cloud, SaaS and much more). It is developed by the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF), which is a group of key figures from companies such as, IBM, VMware, NEC, Microsoft, Dell, Intel and more. Below are some of the high-level highlights taken from the latest release:

	
Optimized for distribution
	
Optimized for a simple, automated user experience
	
Supports both single VM and multiple-VM configurations
	
Portable VM packaging
	
Vendor and platform independent
	
Extensible
	
Localizable
	
Open standard

1.1 included the following:

• Capability for file system-based images to increase flexibility at deployment time
• A property attribute to hide password values at the user interface
• Joliet extensions for ISO transport image

A good example of how OVF can be used is Zimbra which VMware acquired earlier this year. Here is a link to how you can test Zimbra using OVF.

As well, check out VMware’s market place for other examples.

Link to the official VMware OVF Tool User Guide.