What is a Virtual Machine?

A Virtual Machine is a tightly-isolated software container that can run its own operating system and applications as if it were a physical computer. A Virtual Machine (VM) behaves exactly like a physical computer. A VM contains it own virtual hardware, such as a software-based CPU, RAM, hard disk, and network interface card (NIC). The VM that you create with the distribution constructor will include an Oracle Solaris operating system preinstalled in the Virtual Machine.

VirtualBox is an x86 virtualization application which facilitates the creation of Virtual Machines.

What is the Final Product?

When the distribution constructor builds a Virtual Machine, the Virtual Machine is exported in three formats by default, and stores as a set of files in the <build_area>/media directory on the host system.

Note - A host system is the system on which you run the distribution constructor and build a Virtual Machine.

A client system is the system on which you deploy a Virtual Machine.

The files are stored in the following sub-directories and formats.

build_area/media/esx – Virtual machine files in a format suitable for VMware's ESX/ESXi product.
build_area/media/ovf – Virtual machine files in an OVF format for hypervisors that can import such a format.

Note - OVF is an industry-standard, platform-independent format for Virtual Machines.

The files in each folder are Virtual Machine images. You can burn the files to a DVD.

Note - Another end product is an XML file that records, just for reference, the settings that the distribution constructor used to configure the Virtual Machine.

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	Oracle Solaris 11 Express Distribution Constructor Guide Oracle Solaris 11 Express 11/10