Communication of virtual machine data

A client computing device comprising:

• a storage interface for communicatively coupling the client computing device to at least one local non-volatile storage device;
• a network interface for communicatively coupling the client computing device to a server computing device over one or more networks, the server computing device having access to at least a portion of a remote virtual machine disk image comprising a first set of data arranged in a first sequence;
• a communication manager arranged to receive data corresponding to the remote virtual machine disk image from the server computing device via the network interface and to store said received data as a local virtual machine disk image in said at least one storage device;
• and
• a virtual machine manager arranged to implement a virtual machine on the computing device using the local virtual machine disk image stored in said at least one storage device,
• wherein the communication manager is further arranged to receive a second set of data from the server computing device, the second set of data comprising at least a portion of the first set of data arranged in a second sequence, the second sequence being different from the first sequence.

A server computing device computing device comprising:

• a network interface for communicatively coupling the server to one or more networks;
• and
• a communication manager arranged to instruct, via the network interface, communication of data corresponding to a virtual machine disk image to a client computing device, at least a portion of the virtual machine disk image comprising a first set of data arranged in a first sequence,
• wherein the communication manager is further arranged to instruct communication of a second set of data to the client computing device, the second set of data comprising at least a portion of the first set of data arranged in a second sequence, the second sequence being different from the first sequence.