No longer search for VDDK (Virtual Disk Development Kit) on Broadcom’s developer portal—the public download links are dead.
This library provides access to VMware virtual disks outside the hypervisor. It fuels a wide range of VM migration tools.
After years of open availability, Broadcom now says that VDDK is not intended for end users. It says it will reserve it for its technology partners to develop backup solutions.
As a result, moderators of the subreddit VMware removed posts, arguing that the rules forbid discussions about topics that touch the partner program. The U.S.-based group went after external download links, including on Internet Archive.
From Red Hat to Nutanix, learning to do without VDDK
The initiative has implications for tools that require users to provide their own copy of VDDK. AWS Transform MGN (formerly Application Migration Service) is one of them. The documentation still invites downloading the library via Broadcom’s portal. However, this is only necessary for agentless migration. An option AWS only recommends for particular cases—for example, unmanaged operating systems or policies prohibiting agent installation.
Red Hat is also involved with its Migration Toolkit. The vendor says it is working to remove the VDDK dependency. In the meantime, it recommends using the so-called storage copy offload feature. It leverages the SCSI protocol’s XCOPY command to transfer data directly between storage arrays.
The same fallback solution (cross-array cloning) applies to Nutanix Move. The default method uses VDDK. Nutanix asks its community to refrain from distributing copies of the library and from sharing unofficial download links.
ShapeBlue is a British Apache CloudStack integrator. Its migration tool to KVM uses VDDK via the virt-v2v engine. More precisely, two of the four supported methods—one of which is the most efficient, eliminating the OVF export phase by streaming blocks directly from the hypervisor to the conversion pipeline. Given that redistribution is prohibited, no Linux distribution or container image ships with VDDK, the company notes.
With Broadcom’s blessing, backup-solution vendors can integrate the library into their installers. Among them, Veeam, whose ISO images attract interest, is among the parties eyeing the approach.
