For all the capabilities that virtual machine disk files bring to the IT table, there is one issue that stands out to me that sometimes makes my life difficult - virtual hard disk format compatibility between virtualization vendors, or should I say lack thereof. If you work with one virtualization platform/vendor exclusively, this issue may never bite you. Unless of course you plan on downloading virtual applian For all the capabilities that virtual machine disk files bring to the IT table, there is one issue that stands out to me that sometimes makes my life difficult – virtual hard disk format compatibility between virtualization vendors, or should I say lack thereof. If you work with one virtualization platform/vendor exclusively, this issue may never bite you. Unless of course you plan on downloading virtual appliances or need access to someone else’s virtual machine images that were created using another vendor’s format. Whammo!Fortunately, even though these virtual disk formats aren’t fully compatible with each other, vendors and third-party software companies have created and offer virtual machine imaging tools to help convert from one format to another to get you on your way to using the virtual hard disk file. To help its customer base address this problem, XenSource recently introduced a free download availability of version 1.0 of their XenSource Virtual Disk Migration Tool. The program is free software, and can be distributed and/or modified under the terms of the GNU General Public License.The tool provides virtual to virtual or V2V functionality which is used to convert Windows virtual machines created with VMware or Microsoft Virtual PC/Virtual Server to the Xen Virtual Appliance (XVA) format. The resulting XVA can then be imported into a XenSource family product such as XenEnterprise, XenServer or XenExpress and then booted as a XenServer HVM guest. The tool currently operates on Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 R2 or Windows Vista machines. You can download it and read more about it by going here.And for more support with the tool, you can go here, a XenSource sponsored community forum for discussions and community support of the V2V tool.Enjoy! Let us know how it works out for you. Software Development