Bringing the Cloud Down to Earth: Transient PCs Everywhere

The convergence of cloud computing with mobile computing opens the door to the creation of new applications and services that can be delivered to users at any time and any place. At the heart of this convergence lies a delicate balance between centralization and decentralization. We explore the forces underlying this balance, and examine the role of virtual machine (VM) technology. We observe that a VM-based model of cloud computing called a Transient PCoffers an approach to “carry-nothing” mobile computing that harnesses the full power of local hardware at the edges of the Internet. In particular, we show how a zero-install Transient PC implementation can safely use local storage.