Abstract: Various approaches for virtual appliance management are described. In one approach a virtual appliance repository stores one or more virtual appliances and is coupled to the host computer via a network. A storage device stores a transceiver program capable when executed on said host computer of requesting and receiving the virtual appliances, and generating for each received virtual appliance a respective local copy on the host computer of each received virtual appliance. The local copy is private to the host computer. The transceiver program further binds the virtual appliances to the host computer and obtains user data relevant to the virtual appliances. The transceiver program runs each of the virtual appliances from the respective private local copies on the host computer.

Abstract: Various approaches for virtual appliance management are described. In one approach a virtual appliance repository stores one or more virtual appliances and is coupled to the host computer via a network. A storage device stores a transceiver program capable when executed on said host computer of requesting and receiving the virtual appliances, and generating for each received virtual appliance a respective local copy on the host computer of each received virtual appliance. The local copy is private to the host computer. The transceiver program further binds the virtual appliances to the host computer and obtains user data relevant to the virtual appliances. The transceiver program runs each of the virtual appliances from the respective private local copies on the host computer.

Abstract: A cache-based system management architecture named “the Collective” automates system management and supports mobile computing. The Collective manages systems by manipulating virtual appliances, each encapsulating a system state. A virtual appliance (VA) may comprise a virtual network of VAs. Distributed repositories separately storing the VAs and user data. Publishers create and maintain VAs. A user plugs a bootable portable storage device implementing a VA transceiver (VAT) into a host computer. The VAT, comprising a Manager, a Cache Client, and a virtual machine monitor (VMM), authenticates the user, retrieves a copy of the latest version of a subscribed VA from the appropriate network repository, obtains user data, and automatically backs up the user data over the network in the background while running the subscribed VA. Multiple VAs can be run at the same time. With the novel caching protocol and cache charging process, the Collective performs well and has numerous advantages.