Re: [Qemu-devel] vmdk stream-optimised format

[Fam Zheng]

On Mon, 08/19 12:50, Alex Bligh wrote:
> 
> On 19 Aug 2013, at 12:23, Fam Zheng wrote:
> 
> > Yes, that would be something possible to do. Is it the only format to
> > upload a VM to vCenter now, shouldn't normal VMDK be supported as well?
> 
> Ian puts it better than I can:
> 
> > This format is only useful if you are attempting to import virtual machines
> > into ESX using the vSphere SOAP API and HTTP POST uploads of image files.
> > (In which case, it is required.)
> 
> IE it is the ONLY format you can use using the vSphere SOAP API, which is
> the only way to automate image uploading. vCenter converts other formats
> to this format.
> 
> Extensive testing with qemu in Q1 this year indicates that it is not
> possible to use qemu-img convert to produce anything that will upload.
> I went as far as hexdump at the time. I believe I tried compat6
> and the various subformat options.
> 
> I believe we /read/ this format fine.
> 
OK, thanks for explaination. That sounds a valid use case for
streamOptimized. However I am afraid QEMU and its users benefit not much
from this feature anyway, because it's moving a VM away to VMware, :)
that might be the reason it's not there yet, and I don't know about any
plan to do it in the near future.

But if someone sends patches for this, I think it is possible to get in.

Thanks,
Fam