virtualization
Says license was never about moving VMs
VMware has defended its decision to end public downloads of its Virtual Disk Development Kit (VDDK).VDDK is an SDK that a Broadcom technical document describes as “a set of libraries and utilities that enable software developers to create applications that can access and manipulate virtual disks used” and also “provides APIs for backup and recovery, cloning, and other operations on virtual disks.”“With VDDK, developers can create applications that perform backup and restore operations for virtual machines, as well as applications that create clones or snapshots of virtual disks,” the document advises. “VDDK also includes utilities for converting virtual disks between different formats and for creating virtual disks from scratch.”
The functions spelled out above mean VDDK is also useful when moving VMs from VMware to another virtualization environment.
VMware’s rivals spotted that and made VDDK part of their migration tools. Nutanix’s Move migration tool, for example, requires a VDDK library to do the job. Red Hat also recommends using VDDK for migrations.ShapeBlue, an integrator that specializes in Apache CloudStack, an alternative to VMware, rates VDDK as an important part of migration tools.“The virt-v2v engine that sits underneath most VMware-to-KVM conversion work supports VDDK as an input transport,” the company wrote in late August.ShapeBlue’s post appeared a day or two after VMware, without fanfare or an explanation, took down the web pages that offered VDDK downloads.“A vendor is entitled to change how it distributes an SDK,” ShapeBlue wrote. “Doing it without a word, while the Apache CloudStack administration guide and other projects’ install instructions still tell people to click a link that no longer resolves, is something else.”“The cost lands unevenly too,” the company added. “A large backup vendor with a partner relationship has someone to call. A three-person migration consultancy, an open-source project, or a customer converting their own workloads has a forum post and a 404.”In an email to The Register, VMware defended its actions. To understand its response, know that VMware calls third party developers who work with its products technology alliance partners – aka “TAPs”.“Access to the VDDK is still available through select TAP for its licensed use case, which has always been backup and recovery,” VMware told The Register. “Customers needing backup and recovery capabilities can choose from the many approved solutions already available from these partners.”
