OK I've finally had a chance to take a look at this XVA XenServer format. From the looks of it I suspect the only reason Citrix decided to invent yet another proprietary format to facilitate vendor lock-in. Otherwise why not just use (or at least support!) the same formats supported by the open source version of Xen? I also find it suspicious that there is precious little documentation for converting XVA to other more standard formats.
That the official support toolset is Windows only is also incredibly boneheaded. Especially for a Linux based hypervisor. These guys obviously have developers who can develop full Linux support so I'm thinking the lack of support is no coincidence. Something is rotten in the kingdom of Citrix!
Bottom line, Citrix doesn't play nice with the open source community. I don't see why we should bend over backwards to support their intentionally crippled proprietary product.
In the meantime there should be reasonable workarounds for anyone unfortunate enough to be stuck on a XenServer deployment that doesn't support installation from ISO. Convert the OVF formats, install the ISO on another Citrix installation and export the XVA file, etc.
Too bad Citrix is not a good open source citizen
That the official support toolset is Windows only is also incredibly boneheaded. Especially for a Linux based hypervisor. These guys obviously have developers who can develop full Linux support so I'm thinking the lack of support is no coincidence. Something is rotten in the kingdom of Citrix!
Bottom line, Citrix doesn't play nice with the open source community. I don't see why we should bend over backwards to support their intentionally crippled proprietary product.
In the meantime there should be reasonable workarounds for anyone unfortunate enough to be stuck on a XenServer deployment that doesn't support installation from ISO. Convert the OVF formats, install the ISO on another Citrix installation and export the XVA file, etc.
PS: Sorry for the late response.