Virtual Appliances in the Collective: A Road to Hassle-Free Computing

This paper describes the vision of the Collective, a compute utility which runs internet services as well as the highly interactive applications we run on desktop computers today. As part of this vision, we wish to shift the burden of administering the desktops from users to professionals. To decrease the cost of administering systems, we find inspiration in the reliability and maintainability of network-connected computer appliances. We argue for structuring our software as a group of networked appliances, each appliance virtualized on a virtual machine monitor. We show how to run virtual appliances in the Collective system and examine some ways in which individuals and groups may adopt virtual appliances.