Posts Tagged ‘best virtual appliance’
Top 10 VMware Virtual Appliances for IT Administrators
I have reviewed several appliances in the IT Administration and Systems Infrastructure categories of the VMware Appliance Marketplace to identify the Top Ten and more appliances. Here are the steps I followed for selecting the appliances listed below:
- I have relied on the Average customer Rating, expressed as a 5 star, or a 4 star, etc., rating (you may wish to review my analysis of VMware’s ratings)
- I discarded all virtual appliances that solely package OS distributions, primarily, ubuntu, fedora, etc. My rationale is that an OS by itself provides low business value to an IT Administrator. While an IT administrator can use these just as if they were using a ghost image, these virtual appliances neither package applications in a usable form, nor simplify the task of installing and configuring the applications that provide business value. Besides, the base OS virtual appliances are available in a category by themselves
- I also discarded several appliances rated 4.5 star or less, which are present in the directory but have either broken or stubbed out download links. They seem to have been retained in the directory to beef up the appliance count, however, they are not useful to the community.
|
S. No. |
Virtual Appliance |
What is it used for? |
Download Link |
Average Customer Rating |
Number of Reviews |
Pricing |
|
1 |
WebGUI is an open source content management system built to give business users the ability to build and maintain complex web sites. |
5 |
0 |
Free |
||
|
2 |
Opsview 2.12 Virtual Machine – Network and Application Monitoring |
Opsview is enterprise network and application monitoring software designed for scalability, flexibility and ease of use. |
5 |
0 |
Free |
|
|
3 |
Web Interface for managing Nessus Vulnerability Scans and results |
5 |
0 |
Free |
||
|
4 |
Open Source Business Intelligence Suite |
5 |
0 |
Free |
||
|
5 |
up.time allows you to monitor, measure and manage your physical and virtual IT infrastructure from a single centralized console. |
5 |
5 |
$695 per license |
||
|
6 |
Web application firewall with automated adaptive learning, load balancing and XML support. PCI DSS and OWASP Top Ten compliant |
5 |
0 |
Free Trial, $5950 per license |
||
|
7 |
The only VTL solution that improves the quality and efficiency of tape backup in virtual enviroments. |
5 |
0 |
Registration 30 day trial |
||
|
8 |
Virtual WAN Optimization Controller |
5 |
0 |
Free Trial |
||
|
9 |
The AllardSoft Secure Filetransfer Appliance allows you to send very large files securely using a standard web browser. |
5 |
5 |
Free trial, $79 per license |
||
|
10 |
FOG is a computer imaging/cloning solution with many advanced features includes web gui and client service. |
5 |
0 |
Free |
||
|
11 |
High-Class scalable anti spam solution from small business to enterprise. Developed in Europe/Austria |
5 |
0 |
Free |
||
|
12 |
*Most popular Firewall appliance* All-in-one firewall package upgraded with VMXnet, heartbeat and MUI-control. |
4.5 |
0 |
Free |
||
|
13 |
Mail Server appliance |
4 |
0 |
Free |
Which virtual appliance do you use the most and why do you like it?
VMware Appliance Marketplace Ratings Analysis
During the past week, I was analyzing the recently revamped VMware Appliance Marketplace. My analysis is summarized below:
Salient Statistics
- 9% are top-rated, i.e., have a Star Rating of 5
- 41% have a Star Rating of between 3 and 4, i.e., this cluster may be providing the most value to its users, even though it is not top-rated.
- There is a steep drop-off in the number of appliances that have a Star Rating below 3
- 31% are unrated, which seems to indicate that a significant majority has been submitted recently
- Only 3% (40/1227) have Reviews – this is a very small number. The number of reviews have to grow substantially to indicate that a vibrant community, like Amazon.com reviews, has formed here
Transparency
I feel there is a greater need for transparency. What do the Star Ratings mean?
- Are they correlated with the number of downloads for that appliance?
- What is the impact of reviews on these ratings?
Beware Star Ratings alone! The following appliance rated 4.5 has 4 reviews, read them and you will know what I mean.
As a member of VMware’s Technology Network community, I will urge VMware to provide greater transparency around how these ratings are computed/awarded. It will greatly help the users understand the ratings system.
What do you think?
Data
|
VMware Marketplace Ratings |
Number of User Reviews |
|||||||||
|
Star Rating |
Total for this Rating |
% of Overall |
14 |
6 |
5 |
4 |
3 |
2 |
1 |
Total Reviews |
|
5 |
115 |
9% |
|
|
2 |
|
|
3 |
9 |
14 |
|
4.5 |
40 |
3% |
|
|
|
1 |
|
|
2 |
3 |
|
4 |
151 |
12% |
|
|
|
|
1 |
|
3 |
4 |
|
3.5 |
158 |
13% |
|
1 |
|
|
|
|
1 |
2 |
|
3 |
196 |
16% |
|
|
|
|
|
1 |
2 |
3 |
|
2.5 |
64 |
5% |
|
|
|
|
1 |
1 |
|
2 |
|
2 |
24 |
2% |
1 |
|
|
|
|
1 |
3 |
5 |
|
1.5 |
13 |
1% |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
0 |
|
1 |
87 |
7% |
|
|
|
|
|
|
7 |
7 |
|
0 |
379 |
31% |
|
|
|
|
|
|
0 |
0 |
|
Total |
1227 |
100% |
1 |
1 |
2 |
1 |
2 |
6 |
27 |
40 |
Most popular VMWare Virtual Appliances for Security
Updated on September 25, 2009: Please review the updated list of virtual appliances.
You may also be interested in reviewing virtual appliances for IT Administrators.
The original post has been retained as a historical reference. The download links for most of the appliances in the following table no longer work since VMware has revamped the Appliance Marketplace.
Thanks
********** ORIGINAL POST FOLLOWS **********
I have ranked the virtual appliances for IT Administrators available at the VMWare Virtual Appliance Marketplace (VVAM) as described below. Apart from the serial number in the first column and the computed Rank in the last column, all other data is from the VVAM; the titles are self-explanatory.
Methodology
- I accessed the listings for Security, sorted them by Rating and cut and pasted the first 100 listing into an Excel spreadsheet.
- The Star rating that is visible on the web page shows up as a decimal fraction in Excel, this is what you see in the Customer Rating column below.
- I computed a Rank for each listing by multiplying the Customer Rating x 100 x the number of ratings for that appliance.
- Finally I sorted the result by the rank to prepare the table that appears below. I have selected the top 20 of 174 appliances.
- The virtual appliances are ordered by their rank from the highest to the lowest
- I found it interesting that several appliances that rated a 5 had either one or no user each and the bulk of the ratings are for appliances having 4 and 3 stars.
|
No. |
IT Administration Virtual Appliance |
What is it used for? |
Customer Rating (R) |
# Ratings (N) |
Rank (R*100*N) |
|
1 |
Internet Privacy Appliance. Encrypts your Internet traffic, hides your IP address, and is easy to setup. |
4.7009 |
448 |
210,600 |
|
|
2 |
*Most popular Firewall appliance* All-in-one firewall package upgraded with VMXnet, heartbeat and MUI-control. |
4.5283 |
159 |
72,000 |
|
|
3 |
SpamTitan allows you create a Email Security Appliance for your Gateway |
4.3478 |
23 |
10,000 |
|
|
4 |
Antispam / Antivirus Gateway and Email Archive Server |
4.1739 |
23 |
9,600 |
|
|
5 |
Best-of-breed open source network security applications with supporting scripts and a web-based front-end management interface. |
4.0000 |
18 |
7,200 |
|
|
6 |
Open Source Security Gateway & Firewall that blocks Spam, Spyware, Myspace & more |
4.0667 |
15 |
6,100 |
|
|
7 |
Email anti-spam, anti-virus, anti-phishing appliance |
4.2143 |
14 |
5,900 |
|
|
8 |
Astaro Security Gateway is the world’s most popular Unified Threat Management software appliance. |
3.9333 |
15 |
5,900 |
|
|
9 |
Secure File Transfer Virtual Appliance – secure, economical and easy to use secure file transfer for today’s global enterprises |
4.1429 |
14 |
5,800 |
|
|
10 |
This setup will set on any network and scan either a network or a single server |
3.8000 |
15 |
5,700 |
|
|
11 |
IPCop 1.4.11 (cvs) firewall, selected add-ons and full VMware Tools integration |
3.2941 |
17 |
5,600 |
|
|
12 |
Complete VPN enabled (Cisco 3000 series, OpenVPN) remote desktop client (RDP, XDMCP, VNC) software stack. |
3.0588 |
17 |
5,200 |
|
|
13 |
Linux-based firewall, VPN, and advanced router |
4.0909 |
11 |
4,500 |
|
|
14 |
Network Security Exploit Suite |
4.6667 |
9 |
4,200 |
|
|
15 |
Continuous availability and complete protection of physical and virtual machines |
3.3333 |
12 |
4,000 |
|
|
16 |
Penguin Sleuth Kit Virtual Computer Forensics and Security Platform |
Get started Managing Your IP Space Address today! Freeware! |
3.5455 |
11 |
3,900 |
|
17 |
It analyzes network traffic using netflow data and reports on bandwidth usage by top applications, conversations and hosts. |
4.375 |
8 |
3,500 |
|
|
18 |
MediaWiki plus the LAMP stack in a turn-key VMware form-factor |
3.5000 |
10 |
3,500 |
|
|
19 |
Proven Security for Virtual Environments |
4.000 |
8 |
3,200 |
|
|
20 |
Connectra secure remote access gateway unifies best of breed SSL VPN, IPSec VPN and intrusion prevention |
3.875 |
8 |
3,100 |
Pre-configured VHD (Virtual Appliance) available from Microsoft
The Microsoft Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) format is the common virtualization file format for
- Virtual PC (host: Windows XP or 2000, guest: multiple PC-based operating systems)
- Virtual Server (host: Windows 2003, Small Business Server or XP, guest: Windows 2003, XP, 2000 and NT4 SP6a)
- Windows Server 2008 with built-in hypervisor Hyper-V (host: Windows 2008 64-bit, 64-bit and 32-bit guests: Windows 2008, 2003, SuSe Enterprise Server 10, WIndows Vista, Windows XP)
Microsoft’s has introduced the Run IT on a Virtual Hard Disk program so that customers can try Microsoft’s and its partner’s products downloaded as a pre-configured virtual hard disk, i.e., virtual appliance, for free in their own environment , for 30, 60 or 90 days, without the need for dedicated servers or complex installations.
Windows Server 2008 VHD’s:
Pre-requisites: Microsoft Server 2008 Hyper-V must be installed on a physical machine. A 64-bit system with hardware-assisted virtualization enabled and data execution prevention (DEP) is required. You should have a clean install of x64 edition of Windows Server 2008 to be able to use the Hyper-V technology. Detailed pre-requisites are availabe here.
Full Install:
- Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition x86 (Full Install) VHD
- Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition x64 (Full install) VHD
- Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition x86 (Full Install) VHD
- Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition x64 (Full Install) VHD
Core Install:
- Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition x86 (Core Install) VHD
- Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition x64 (Core install) VHD
- Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition x86 (Core Install) VHD
- Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition x64 (Core Install) VHD
Application VHD’s:
Pre-requisites:: Microsoft Virtual PC or Virtual Server
|
No. |
Pre-configured VHD |
What is it used for? |
|
1 |
Evaluate the new capabilities of Exchange Server 2007 SP1. |
|
|
2 |
System Center provides you a solution for operating system deployment, patch management, software distribution, virtual application streaming and more (product homepage and Configuration Manager Techcenter) |
|
|
3 |
Windows Server 2003 R2 simplifies branch server management, improves identity and access management, reduces storage management costs, provides a rich Web platform. |
|
|
4 |
Office SharePoint Server 2007 is a collaboration and content management server that supports all intranet, extranet, and Web applications across an enterprise within one integrated platform. |
|
|
5 |
An integrated security system that delivers comprehensive, coordinated protection across endpoints, messaging and collaboration servers, and the network edge. It simplifies management and provides critical visibility into threats, vulnerabilities, and configuration risks |
|
|
6 |
System Center Essentials 2007 SP1 is a new management solution specifically designed for IT professionals working in midsize businesses troubleshooting user problems, automating management tasks, managing multiple systems, and diagnosing and resolving IT problems |
|
|
7 |
Dekstop OS |
None of Microsoft’s partners are offering pre-configured VHD’s on Microsoft’s site at the time of writing. I am wondering why this is so?
Most popular VMWare Virtual Appliances for Web Apps
I have ranked the virtual appliances for App/Web Servers available at the VMWare Virtual Appliance Marketplace (VVAM) as described below. I am going through this exercise to gain an understanding of what types of appliances are popular, who is providing them and what they are composed of. Apart from the serial number in the first column and the computed Rank in the last column, all other data is from the VVAM; the titles are self-explanatory.
Methodology
- I accessed the listings for App/Web Server, sorted them by Rating and cut and pasted the first 100 listing into an Excel spreadsheet.
- The Star rating that is visible on the web page shows up as a decimal fraction in Excel, this is what you see in the Customer Rating column below.
- I computed a Rank for each listing by multiplying the Customer Rating x 100 x the number of ratings for that appliance.
- Finally I sorted the result by the rank to prepare the table that appears below. I have selected the top 25 of 269 appliances
- The virtual appliances are ordered by their rank from the highest to the lowest
- I found it interesting that several appliances that rated a 5 had either one or no user each and the bulk of the ratings are for appliances having 4 and 3 stars.
|
No. |
Web/App Server Virtual Appliance |
What is it used for? |
Customer Rating (R) |
# Ratings (N) |
Rank (R*100*N) |
|
1 |
Internet Privacy Appliance. Encrypts your Internet traffic, hides your IP address, and is easy to setup. |
4.7009 |
448 |
210,600 |
|
|
2 |
A tiny but mighty tcp load balancer |
4.1333 |
132 |
57,200 |
|
|
3 |
Pyle provides you with the python programming language learning environment |
3.9545 |
66 |
26100 |
|
|
4 |
This setup helps make sure that critical machines is as little downtime as possible |
4.0870 |
46 |
18,800 |
|
|
5 |
A virtual machine appliance featuring Fedora (LDAP) Directory Server 1.02 on Fedora Core 5 |
4.0556 |
36 |
14,600 |
|
|
6 |
VM with Fedora Core 5, Apache, and Htdig |
4.2083 |
24 |
10,100 |
|
|
7 |
A platform facilitate the deployment of cluster-aware solaris applications, an ideal test bed for a developer. |
4.0000 |
25 |
10,000 |
|
|
8 |
A simple, feature full, SSL secured, and easy to use FTP server and web interface written in PHP backended by MySQL and ProFTPD. |
3.8750 |
24 |
9,300 |
|
|
9 |
A comprehensive and easy to use web content filtering system |
3.2593 |
27 |
8,800 |
|
|
10 |
Best-of-breed open source network security applications with supporting scripts and a web-based front-end management interface. |
4.0952 |
21 |
8,600 |
|
|
11 |
A mail proxy based on FreeBSD with spam (SpamAssassin) and virus (ClamAV) scanning. Can be used with any existing mail system. |
3.6522 |
23 |
8,400 |
|
|
12 |
Collaboration Server |
4.1500 |
20 |
8,300 |
|
|
13 |
J2EE 1.4 platform app. server,focused mainly on developer productivity; Ideal for Web Services/SOA and Web 2.0-based apps. |
4.1000 |
20 |
8,200 |
|
|
14 |
OBS Webfire, Open Office, Firefox, Apache, Jboss(EJB 3), Eclipse, VNC, MySQL, Games on SuSE 10 |
4.2632 |
19 |
8,100 |
|
|
15 |
A virtual machine designed for testing and fine tuning your web-based applications in a safe environment |
4.0500 |
20 |
8,100 |
|
|
16 |
JBoss appliance, based on FC5 with http installation and managment tools |
4.1579 |
19 |
7,900 |
|
|
17 |
Use this VM to Backup, Restore, or Clone the Hard Disk Drive of any Computer or VM over the Network! |
4.1111 |
18 |
7,400 |
|
|
18 |
Open Source Medical Practice Management Software Appliance |
4.1765 |
17 |
7,100 |
|
|
19 |
A PDF Server providing network shared printers for creating PDF documents |
3.5000 |
20 |
7,000 |
|
|
20 |
Windows 7 is the next release of Microsoft Windows, an operating system produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers. |
4.2500 |
16 |
6,800 |
|
|
21 |
Ubuntu based HylaFax Server that allows you to use WinModems for faxing |
4.0265 |
16 |
6,500 |
|
|
22 |
Application Delivery Controller |
4.0000 |
16 |
6,400 |
|
|
23 |
Have your very own wiki website everywhere you go |
3.8125 |
16 |
6,100 |
|
|
24 |
rPath Port 25 Mail Server Appliance |
3.9333 |
15 |
5,900 |
|
|
25 |
LDAP-controlled CentOS server with embedded preconfigured Ubuntu miniDAD clients that “know” how to contact DAD |
4.0000 |
14 |
5,600 |
Be sure to lookup the other articles on the most popular VMWare Virtual Appliances on this blog.
Most popular VMWare Virtual Appliances for IT Administrators
Updated on September 23, 2009: Please review the updated list of virtual appliances.
You may also be interested in reviewing virtual appliances for Security.
The original post has been retained as a historical reference. The download links for most of the appliances in the following table no longer work since VMware has revamped the Appliance Marketplace.
Thanks
********** ORIGINAL POST FOLLOWS **********
I have ranked the virtual appliances for IT Administrators available at the VMWare Virtual Appliance Marketplace (VVAM) as described below. I am going through this exercise to gain an understanding of what types of appliances are popular, who is providing them and what they are composed of. Apart from the serial number in the first column and the computed Rank in the last column, all other data is from the VVAM; the titles are self-explanatory.
Methodology
- I accessed the listings for Administration, sorted them by Rating and cut and pasted the first 100 listing into an Excel spreadsheet.
- The Star rating that is visible on the web page shows up as a decimal fraction in Excel, this is what you see in the Customer Rating column below.
- I computed a Rank for each listing by multiplying the Customer Rating x 100 x the number of ratings for that appliance.
- Finally I sorted the result by the rank to prepare the table that appears below. I have selected the top 20 of 269 appliances.
- The virtual appliances are ordered by their rank from the highest to the lowest
- I found it interesting that several appliances that rated a 5 had either one or no user each and the bulk of the ratings are for appliances having 4 and 3 stars.
|
No. |
IT Administration Virtual Appliance |
What is it used for? |
Customer Rating (R) |
# Ratings (N) |
Rank (R*100*N) |
|
1 |
Internet Privacy Appliance. Encrypts your Internet traffic, hides your IP address, and is easy to setup. |
4.7009 |
448 |
210,600 |
|
|
2 |
*Most popular Firewall appliance* All-in-one firewall package upgraded with VMXnet, heartbeat and MUI-control. |
4.5283 |
159 |
72,000 |
|
|
3 |
A tiny but mighty tcp load balancer |
4.1333 |
132 |
57,200 |
|
|
4 |
This setup helps make sure that critical machines is as little downtime as possible |
4.1714 |
35 |
14,600 |
|
|
5 |
SpamTitan allows you create a Email Security Appliance for your Gateway |
4.3478 |
23 |
10,000 |
|
|
6 |
Antispam / Antivirus Gateway and Email Archive Server |
4.1739 |
23 |
9,600 |
|
|
7 |
BalancePoint helps VMware customers fix performance issues, avoid future problems, and optimize server and storage capacity |
4.1364 |
22 |
9,100 |
|
|
8 |
Ubuntu 8.04 Desktop VMware image with VMware Tools and sound |
3.7500 |
24 |
9,000 |
|
|
9 |
Instant IT Monitoring |
4.0000 |
22 |
8,800 |
|
|
10 |
Best-of-breed open source network security applications with supporting scripts and a web-based front-end management interface. |
4.0000 |
17 |
7,200 |
|
|
11 |
Download Link has been disabled post close of Windows 7 Beta. Windows 7 is the next release of Microsoft Windows, an operating system produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers. |
4.2500 |
16 |
6,800 |
|
|
12 |
Application Delivery Controller |
4.0000 |
16 |
6,400 |
|
|
13 |
rPath Port 25 Mail Server Appliance |
3.9333 |
15 |
5,900 |
|
|
14 |
NAS and SAN storage operating system |
3.6875 |
16 |
5,900 |
|
|
15 |
The File Transfer Appliance allows you to send up to 2 Gb files securely using a standard web browser. |
4.7500 |
8 |
3,800 |
|
|
16 |
VNSA provides granular, real time and historical visibility into the virtual switch traffic. |
4.3750 |
8 |
3,500 |
|
|
17 |
Use to provision virtual and physical Linux systems through Kickstart |
4.2500 |
8 |
3,400 |
|
|
18 |
Get started Managing Your IP Space Address today! Freeware! |
3.7500 |
8 |
3,000 |
|
|
19 |
It analyzes network traffic using netflow data and reports on bandwidth usage by top applications, conversations and hosts. |
4.1429 |
7 |
2,900 |
|
|
20 |
MediaWiki plus the LAMP stack in a turn-key VMware form-factor |
4.1429 |
7 |
2,900 |
