Convert OVF to OVA

What is OVF file?

The OVF file extension is associated with Open Virtualization Format (OVF). OVF is a platform-independent, efficient, secure and extensible format for packaging and distributing virtual appliances across different virtualization software solutions. OVF specification (version 2.0) is an industry standard and is developed by members of the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) organization. [ ⏩ ] OVF file extension

What is OVA file?

Open Virtual Appliance (.OVA) files are virtual system images used for virtual environments. OVA files are widely used by desktop virtualization software such as VMWare or Oracle VirtualBox, and their cloud counterparts Amazon EC2, Google GCE and Microsoft Azure. OVA files are essentially a single file archive of the format OVF (Open Virtualization Format) which includes the .OVF descriptor file, and any other associated files needed for the virtual appliance. [ ⏩ ] OVA file extension

How to convert the file from OVF to OVA?

To successfully convert the OVF file to OVA, you should install one of the applications from the list. After installing the software, open the program and select the file you want to convert (file-name.OVF). The next step is to select the target format from the list, in this case OVA (usually converters allow you to convert to several different formats, so check out their features - maybe one of the available formats will suit you more than OVA).

What is a file conversion?

A data conversion is normally an automated process to some extent. The effect of the operation of one program is automatically the input product of another application. If that does not happen we need to help the process a little bit and convert the file on our own, e.g. OVF to OVA. To obtain a matched structure of the data, it is necessary to use an appropriate converter.

Program for converting OVF files to OVA files is a kind of a "binary code translator" compensating for the differences in the code or translating it in such a way so that another application could use it. For us, as users, the visible change will be only another file extension. (After converting the file, it will be the extension OVA, while before this step we had the OVF file). For the programs, the difference is on a much higher level – either the application will be able to open a new OVA file, or not.

Other OVF and OVA file conversions