Dear VMware: Pick a Common (SUPPORTED) Virtual Appliance OS…Please….
One of my pet peeves is that each virtual appliance coming out of VMware is that each different virtual appliance released by them is based on a different OS. Some of these do not even have documented methods for updating the OS. We all know that no matter what OS is running on a system, there will be updates for stability and security. Almost every time I begin an engagement with a customer and it involves using a virtual appliance, their security wonks get all pissy with me and I need to show that I have the latest security patches installed before I even connect the appliance to their network.
This all started with the HealthCheck Appliance, which is a tool available to partners. Its running Ubuntu 7.10 Server JEOS. Great! It is an unsupported, deprecated OS. If you know anything about Ubuntu, you know that the “Long Term Support” (LTS) versions are released every other year. So, the latest LTS version is 8.04 and the previous is 6.06. No big deal, right?
