System and method virtual appliance creation

#Software applications are traditionally distributed as one or more files that an application user must install on an appropriate environment, such as a computing device executing an operating system. With the adoption of various virtualization techniques for computing environments, software may instead be distributed as a virtual appliance to be deployed in a virtualized environment (e.g., as one or more virtual machines on one or more host computing devices). However, creation of such virtual appliances may require creators of the virtual appliances to recreate efforts to achieve certain goals (e.g., having a hardened operating system) for the virtual appliance for each different virtual appliance even though the efforts are substantially similar between various virtual appliances.

#In general, in one embodiment, the invention relates to a method for generating virtual appliance products. In one or more embodiments, the method includes obtaining an operating system virtual disk file; creating a configuration file to include a first reference to the operating system virtual disk file and a second reference to a product-specific disk file; generating a virtual appliance file including the configuration file, the operating system virtual disk file, and the product-specific disk file; and distributing the virtual appliance file to a user.

#In general, in one embodiment, the invention relates to a non-transitory computer readable medium including computer readable program code, which when executed by a computer processor enables the computer processor to perform a method for generating virtual appliance products. In one or more embodiments, the method includes obtaining an operating system virtual disk file; creating a configuration file to include a first reference to the operating system virtual disk file and a second reference to a product-specific disk file; generating a virtual appliance file that includes the configuration file, the operating system virtual disk file, and the product-specific disk file; and distributing the virtual appliance file to a user.

#Certain embodiments of the invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings. However, the accompanying drawings illustrate only certain aspects or implementations of the invention by way of example and are not meant to limit the scope of the claims.

#FIG. 1 shows a diagram of a system in accordance with one or more embodiments of the invention.

#FIG. 2 shows a set of virtual appliance products in accordance with one or more embodiments of the invention.

#Specific embodiments will now be described with reference to the accompanying figures.

#In the below description, numerous details are set forth as examples of embodiments described herein. It will be understood by those skilled in the art, and having the benefit of this Detailed Description, that one or more embodiments of embodiments described herein may be practiced without these specific details and that numerous variations or modifications may be possible without departing from the scope of the embodiments described herein. Certain details known to those of ordinary skill in the art may be omitted to avoid obscuring the description.

#In the below description of the figures, any component described with regard to a figure, in various embodiments described herein, may be equivalent to one or more like-named components described with regard to any other figure. For brevity, descriptions of these components will not be repeated with regard to each figure. Thus, each and every embodiment of the components of each figure is incorporated by reference and assumed to be optionally present within every other figure having one or more like-named components. Additionally, in accordance with various embodiments described herein, any description of the components of a figure is to be interpreted as an optional embodiment, which may be implemented in addition to, in conjunction with, or in place of the embodiments described with regard to a corresponding like-named component in any other figure.