The Corente concept of a Virtual Machine (VM) is the combination of the Guest Operating System (OS) and application that is installed as a disk image (or a set of disk images) on the CVSG-VE Location.

Each VM can have access to up to three (3) virtual hard disks, which may be partitioned in any manner to suit the application. Additionally, a VM can have access to a virtual floppy disk image and a virtual CD/DVD image. Typically, the primary hard disk image (drive C: or hda) contains the OS and application, while the other virtual disks (such as D: or hdb, and E: or hdc) can be used for persistent or temporary data storage (including configuration information). These disk images may be upgraded independently, as each disk image is fetched and loaded separately when installed.

The VM creator is responsible for procuring the correct licenses for their chosen guest OS and for providing application requirements, instructions for configuration, and ensuring that the application starts when the VM’s guest OS starts.

VMs are permitted to communicate with both the local LAN and the remote datacenter. Each VM appears on the LAN as if it were a physical machine. Thus, VMs may use any protocol to communicate with other LAN devices (or even other VMs).