Citrix has released an early version of its Kensho tools, which implements the Open Virtual Machine Format (OVF). The OVF is a specification that defines a neutral format for virtual appliances. A virtual appliance is a set of files that represents an application with its own operating system, and is typically encapsulated within one or more virtual machines.

The purpose behind the OVF specifications is to create a vendor-neutral file format that is portable between the different hypervisors on the market. In addition, the OVF package may also contain directions to construct several virtual machines that work together to represent a complete enterprise service or a web service.  At the moment, OVF supports exporting between the VHD and VMDK file formats, which constitutes 99 percent of the virtual machines out there, according to Simon Crosby, CTO of XenSource, which was acquired by Citrix earlier this year.

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