VMware OVF Tool

VMware OVF Tool (or Open Virtualization Format Tool / ovftool) is a free command line tool that allows you to import or export virtual machines in OVF / OVA format to or from different VMware virtualization solutions (VMware Workstation, VMware ESXi , VMware vCenter Server, ...).

Thanks to this "VMware OVF Tool", you can also import OVF / OVA files with compressed virtual hard disks.
This is not possible from the VMware ESXi and VMware vCenter Server web clients. Unless you convert the OVF / OVA file first using this VMware OVF Tool.

Since version 4.4 of VMware OVF Tool, you will even be able to import OVF files as a template on a VMware vCenter Server.

VMware OVF Tool is available on all platforms : Windows, Windows Server, Linux and Mac OS X.