Creating a ovf or ova file of a virtual machine from the vsphere client

So you want to export a vm and transport it.
The reason you would want to convert it to a ova is because the data is packed in a nice format that is easy importable to another esxi host or vsphere cluster.




Difference ova and ovf
An ovf is a directory of a vm with a descriptor file showing what should be expected  in the directory
An ova is a zipped (tar) file of the directory in a nice single package








*note: Your vm has to be turned off to do this


1. Highlight the vm you want to export
2. Then go to file ->export->export ovf template













3. Now you will get a window where you can name your file
4. Choose the directory you want to place it
5. Enter the format you want to export it as. Ova is easier for transporting.
6. Enter any description











Now the conversion will start.







Wait a while…


Here is the OVA







An OVF  looks like this:
The whole directory is the package