As part of my honours project I wrote a thesis on the dynamic generation and execution of virtual machine work units on the grid.

Creating virtual machine work units required an easy method for users to place there grid application within an environment suited for their needs. Grid virtual appliances can be constructed using a very simplistic process that provides flexibility for the grid application giving it complete control of its environment.

As previously mentioned in my blog, I talked about virtual machines as work units. One such example is a Grid Virtual Appliance. Like virtual appliances, a GVA represents an application that is contained within a virtual machine and is distributed as an entire system rather than a separate application. The advantage of such construction is that the application is guranteed to execute within in its own tailored environment and requires little or no interaction from the user in setting up.