Identification and removal of zombie virtual machines

A method comprising:

• creating a virtual machine having a virtual machine identifier;
• storing an entry in a temporary virtual machine registry, wherein the entry includes the virtual machine identifier, inactivity criteria for the virtual machine, and a responsive action for the virtual machine, wherein the inactivity criteria is an amount of activity over a period of time;
• monitoring the activity of the virtual machine;
• and
• initiating the responsive action associated with the virtual machine in response to the virtual machine satisfying the inactivity criteria.

A computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer readable storage medium having program instructions embodied thereon, the program instructions executable by a processor to:

• create a plurality of virtual machines, wherein each of the virtual machines has a unique virtual machine identifier;
• store, for each of the virtual machines, an associated entry in a temporary virtual machine registry, wherein the entry associated with each virtual machine includes the virtual machine identifier of the virtual machine, inactivity criteria for the virtual machine, and a responsive action associated with the inactivity criteria for the virtual machine, wherein the inactivity criteria is an amount of activity over a period of time;
• monitor the activity of each of the virtual machines;
• and
• initiate the responsive action associated with the inactivity criteria of any particular one of the virtual machines in response to the particular virtual machine satisfying the inactivity criteria.