[Qemu-devel] VMDK development plan for Summer of Code 2011

[Fam Zheng]

Hi all,

As a project of Google Summer of Code 2011, I'm now working on
improving VMDK image support. There are many subformats of VMDK
virtual disk, some of which have separate descriptor file and others
don't, some allocate space at once and some others grow dynamically,
some have optional data compression. The current support of VMDK
format is very limited, i.e. qemu now supports single file images, but
couldn't recognize the widely used multi-file types. We have planned
to add such support to VMDK block driver and enable more image types,
and the working timeline is set in weeks (#1 to #7) as:

[#1] Monolithic flat layout support
[#2] Implement compression and Stream-Optimized Compressed Sparse
Extents support.
[#3] Improve ESX Server Sparse Extents support.
[#4] Debug and test. Collect virtual disks with various versions and
options, test qemu-img with them. By now some patches may be ready to
deliver.
[#5, 6] Add multi-file support (2GB extent formats)
[#7] Clean up and midterm evaluation.

According to the above schedule, several formats will be added till
mid-term evaluation of GSoC. The development has been in progress for
a week, and we'll soon have a patch ready for monolithic flat format.

I have also created a project blog for progress update:
http://warm.la/soc
The project code is found at:
https://github.com/famousz/qemu-vmdk
And my mentor is Stefan Hajnoczi, who is doing a great job give the guidance.

Any suggestion or problem report about the development or using VMDK
image with qemu is welcome.

Thanks.

-- 
Best regards!
Fam Zheng