How can virtual appliances be deployed to new VMware users? How do virtual appliances work in existing VMware environments?
With the release of the VMware Player and VMware Server, it is now free for virtual appliance users to get started with this kind of approach to solving their problems. As a customer’s needs evolve, they can adopt other VMware technologies like VMware Workstation, VMware ACE, and VMware ESX Server. Virtual appliances can be run on current releases of all these products. Virtual appliances can easily share the same infrastructure as other virtual machines within the customer’s infrastructure. For users with existing VMware infrastructure, adding a virtual appliance is as simple as deploying any other VM within their environment. In fact, virtual appliances can take advantage of the benefits provided by high-end VMware configurations and features like VMotion™ and can be centrally managed by the VMware VirtualCenter. Virtual appliances can co-exist along side existing virtual machines already running within a host machine.
