Virtual Appliances

What exactly are virtual appliances? I am confronted with this question more often than not. This is how Wiki answers the question:

A virtual appliance is a minimalist virtual machine image designed to run under VMware, Xen, Microsoft Virtual PC, QEMU, Usermode Linux, CoLinux, Virtual Iron or other PC virtualization technology, providing network applications like firewalls or webservers. Virtual appliances are a subset of the broader class of software appliances. 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.

The VMware Technology Network (or the VMTN) draws an interesting analogy between computing appliances and virtual appliances. A computing appliance is a class of computer product which is designed with a specific function in mind and has limits on the ability to be configured beyond that specific function. Generally, the reason devices are called appliances is that they share some characteristics with more traditional household appliances. In that regard, computing appliances tend to be:

• Designed to provide a specific set of functionality
• Limited to specific vendor provided configurations
• Closed and sealed devices
• Not repairable or upgradable by the owner
• Simple with a limited user interface
• Intended for plug-and-play installation and setup

A virtual appliance is similar to a 'traditional' computing appliance and is designed with a specific function in mind. The major difference is that instead of being built on a physical computing device, a virtual appliance is built using virtual machine and can be run on any virtual platform. A virtual appliance starts with a pre-installed and pre-configured operating system. In addition to the base operating system, a virtual appliance contains a pre-installed and pre-configured application. The application may have multiple components and services to provide the required functionality.

The key benefit to building virtual appliances is that developers/vendors no longer need to build, test, and ship physical hardware devices while they still maintain the benefits of providing a ‘sealed’, purpose-built solution. The key benefits to users of virtual appliances focus around simplicity. Virtual appliances can be deployed in a user's environment quickly and easily with very little interaction.

openQRM Virtual Appliance: Manage your Linux, Unix, Windows Virtual & Physical DataCenter!

The Avastu Team with close cooperation with the openQRM Team, has released the Virtual Appliance.

Get it on the VMTN Appliance Market Place:

NOTE 1: To download the appliances please send an email to: info[at]avastu.com

NOTE 2: For requesting downloads @Avastu please do NOT use free email addresses such as hotmail.com, yahoo.com etc.

This is a "Complete Datacenter Management & Provisioning software" with

• File system images of Fedora Core 5 AND Centos 4


• Two diskless nodes

We can customize the product and help you deploy it in your test, development labs and even production! (We are already assisting our current client with several openQRM installations in production).

Details for Testers/Developers/Administrators:

• user = root


• password = sysadmin


• File System Images: Fedora Core 5, Centos 4


• Nodes : 2 (two) diskless nodes


• IP address for url: 192.168.1.100


• WebAdmin username= qrm


• WebAdmin password = qrm

What can openQRM do?

Data center needs and problems

Growing number of commodity servers leads to:

* Increasing number of failures – furthering downtime.

* Servers managed individually lead to:

• greater opportunity for operator error


• inconsistent imaging and policies applied across servers


• over-provisioned or peak-provisioned systems

* Growing management costs – hardware and software are a small part of the price.

Bottom line: System administrators spend a significant amount of time either fighting fires or repeating multiple steps to manage a growing number of individual Linux boxes. Ultimately, the x86 data center is not always reliable, does not meet business needs, and creates inefficiencies in terms of administrative costs per server.

The Solution

Open Resource Manager addresses the needs of the modern data center by:

• Improving reliability on the hardware and application level


• Giving system administrators full control of the data-center


• Provisioning servers within a few minutes


• Consistently applying policies across servers


• Adjusting resources based on business demands


• Managing heterogeneous x86 hardware

Read More at openQRM site

Enjoy your virtual appliance!

Avastu Associate's Interview with BusinessWorld

Sridhar, an associate of Avastu, has setup his own firm in China and is currently working as Director, Shared Services and Offshoring, of Morgan Chambers. He gave an interview to the BusinessWorld during the Nasscom 2007 – India Leadership Forum. Chek it out here!

Avastu White Paper: Indian Market Research

I have written a white paper for Avastu. The research was conducted while keeping the North Indian Market in mind.




To download the White Paper please send an email to info[at]avastu[dot]com.