A case for grid computing on virtual machines

We advocate a novel approach to grid computing that is based on a combination of “classic ” operating system level virtual machines (VMs) and middleware mechanisms to manage VMs in a distributed environment. The abstrac-tion is that of dynamically instantiated and mobile VMs that are a combination of traditional OS processes (the VMmon-itors) and files (the VM state). We give qualitative argu-ments that justify our approach in terms of security, iso-lation, customization, legacy support and resource control, and we show quantitative results that demonstrate the feasi-bility of our approach from a performance perspective. Fi-nally, we describe the middleware challenges implied by the approach and an architecture for grid computing using vir-tual machines. 1