LIGHTWEIGHT ON-DEMAND VIRTUAL MACHINES

Virtual machines are made lightweight by substituting a library operating system for a full-fledged operating system. Consequently, physical machines can include substantially more virtual machines than otherwise possible. Moreover, a hibernation technique can be employed with respect to lightweight virtual machines to further increase the capacity of physical machines. More specifically, virtual machines can be loaded onto physical machines on-demand and removed from physical machines to make computational resources available as needed. Still further yet, since the virtual machines are lightweight, they can be hibernated and restored at a rate substantially imperceptible to users.