vApps, templates, and catalogs
Now that we understand what a virtual machine is, let's look at some of the other important nomenclature that we will be coming across in this chapter and for the remainder of the book:
- vApps: A vApp is VMware terminology, and generally means a preconfigured and packaged virtual machine that contains an operating system, and a preinstalled application; for example, a CentOS-based virtual machine with Apache web server packages rolled into it, a Debian-based MySQL server, or a Windows 2012 server with a preconfigured DNS and DHCP roles in it are all what we call a vApp.
vApps can also be ported from one VMware vSphere-based environment to another due to the fact that all vApps operate on the Open Virtualization Format (OVF). This enables administrators to easily manage and migrate vApps from an on-premise VMware environment over to the vCloud Air.
- Templates: A template, also called a golden image, is a complete and ready-to-use blueprint of a virtual machine...