The present invention relates generally to virtual machines and more particularly to establishing a protected virtual machine in a hypervisor controlled system.
A lifecycle of a virtual machine, also known as a guest, can vary depending on specific operations the virtual machine is assigned to perform. Prior to virtual machines, physical servers used to perform dedicated tasks without having the ability to shuffle tasks between other physical servers for efficiency purposes. Typically, a virtual machine is prepared for tasks with the same operating system (OS), applications, and configurations and stored in a physical storage until the virtual machine can execute the task. Once the task is sent to a physical server supporting the virtual machine, the physical server can perform the task assigned to the virtual machine, the physical server can shutdown upon completion, and revert back to the physical storage. As a result, virtual machines are utilized like physical servers but with a distribution of tasks to decrease operation frequency. Typically, a service provider manages virtual machines, where a client utilizing the virtual machines has to trust that the integrity of the virtual machines has not been compromised.