[ubuntu-cloud] Anyone using the .ovf and/or .vmdk files on cloud-images?

[Scott Moser]

Hey all,

   Is anyone using the .vmdk or .ovf files on
http://cloud-images.ubuntu.com [1] ?

   In the 11.04 cycle, I started building .ovf files with corresponding
.vmdk images.  The goal of this was to make Ubuntu available for use via
software that supported importing OVF.
   I chose to to create the disk as VMDK formated images rather than a
more open-source friendly format such as qcow.   The OVF file and
associated disk image is consumable by both vmware tools and by
VirtualBox.  There are no OVF consumers that I'm aware of that would
function with a qcow (or even 'raw') disk image.  I feel compelled to also
mention that this format of vmdk (compressed) is not supported by qemu-img
or kvm.
   Since having an OVF that could not be used by any software is not
significantly more useful than not having an OVF, we went with vmdk.

   Largely prompted by the interest in providing a download format that is
ideal for OpenStack users [2], I am re-considering my decision.  I would
like to avoid adding another full disk image format to the output of the
build scripts.  As a result I'm thinking about replacing the .vmdk images
with compressed qcow images and updating the OVF files to reference those.

   The reason behind not wanting to just add yet another deliverable is
that more downloads are confusing, and disk space is not necessarily free.
If I can drop a deliverable not used by anyone, then I'd like to do that.

   So, would anyone object to the removal of .vmdk files from
cloud-images?  Is anyone using these that could not just as easily use
qcow2 formated images?

   Thanks,
   Scott

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[1] http://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/server/oneiric/current/
[2] https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/833265