The VMware image is the new appliance
I came across this today (via Planet Gnome): the Virtual Bugzilla Server. It’s a packaged version of Bugzilla, which isn’t anything too exciting in itself. But what’s interesting it the method of distribution: a VMware image, playable in the free VMware Player, that includes not only the Bugzilla application but an entire Linux operating system.
There several advantages to this distribution method:
- You can bundle lots of heavyweight dependancies with your application: database servers, web servers, java, python, you name it.
- The customer/user doesn’t have to do any setup besides downloading and running the image
- You can run your application on Windows and Linux without having to get all the dependancies running on Windows
Of course, there’s an existing way to accomplish the same thing: Install your software on a server and sell it as an “appliance”. That’s what we do at JotSpot with the Jot Box, as do many other companies including Google. Appliances are cool because you can match the software to appropriately powered hardware, and all the IT department has to do is plug in the power and network cables. But for a lot of cases it’s overkill, and it limits your customer base to people who can afford to buy the hardware.
From my perspective, that makes the VMware image distribution model very attractive. In fact, I think in the future companies are going to expect to get their enterprise software as images instead of appliances (or maybe even instead of installable software). I can imagine the day when every company will have a machine or two running the free VMware server, and all they’ll have to do is download and install a new image file to have a new virtual server up and running on their network. And everybody wins. The software company doesn’t have to mess around with hardware, and they can still charge big bucks for their product. The customer can easily install and manage applications and combine servers as needed. VMware gets to have their image file format become a standard means of distributing enterprise software. And Linux gets installed more places, even on top of Windows.
Speaking of appliances, be sure to check out the new $200,000 Ultimate Virtual Appliance Challenge: http://www.vmware.com/challenge/
and our list of other Virtual Appliances: http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/
We’d welcome one with Twisted (or a trial JotSpot) pre-installed!
Comment by John Troyer — February 27, 2006 @ 9:25 pm
Whoa! Very cool idea! This could be an interesting precedent for the future.
Something similar that got me exicted is Knoppix (www.knoppix.net). It’s a “live-distrobution” of linux that runs “live” off a cd or DVD. Besides being a great easy to install distrobution, it doubles as a hardware compatibility checker. You can download the whole system as a burnable image, test it in live mode to see if it works with your hardware, and then install if you like it. The best thing is that the live run doesn’t touch your hard disk so you can testdrive with no worries.
Images are a very cool advance in technology.
Comment by Garrett Wilkin — February 27, 2006 @ 9:33 pm
Hi John – looks like the VMware team is way ahead of me on this one. That’s awesome. I like what you’re doing!
Looking back at Planet Gnome, I see the original post I read was actually written by a VMware employee. Aha! No wonder he’s pointing out cool uses of VMware. Well, your viral marketing scheme is working :-).
Comment by Abe — February 27, 2006 @ 9:49 pm
As someone who has tried, with limited success, to get an enterprise to understand/move to this model, I can tell you that it will be a while, but nevertheless this is a revolution in the making.
Just imagining the productivity gains from this is mind-boggling.
Comment by Guru — April 18, 2006 @ 7:10 pm