VMware helps developers with a new Virtual Disk Development Kit

Without any sort of major fuss or media blitz, VMware released a 1.0 version of its Virtual Disk Development Kit (VDDK).

The VMware VDDK is an open API and SDK that enables VMware customers and partners to develop applications that create and access virtual disk storage. And it allows partners to extend their solutions to support virtualized IT environments and offer solutions for the virtualization market place.

The VDDK supports virtual disk formats for VMware Virtual Infrastructure (VI3), VMware Server, VMware Workstation and VMware Player products.

It enables a wide range of use-cases for application vendors including:

• Creation of virtual machine disk files to store backup of physical images

• Read access to virtual disks, enabling off-line centralized anti-virus scanning of virtual machines

• Write access to virtual disks, enabling off-line centralized patching of virtual machines

• Read access to virtual disks, enabling off-line software package analysis of virtual machines

The VDDK can be used in conjunction with VMware’s other development tools, like the VI API or VCB. And it should help those companies creating solutions in the enterprise backup & recovery markets as well as with anti-virus and security and system management.

To obtain the software, jump over to the VMware Developer Center and under the heading SDKs and APIs, click Virtual Disk. In order to download it, you will need to provide your email address and a registered password.

Tools like this are great, as they can only help build up the virtualization ecosystem and hopefully spark new and interesting products from vendors.