According to some embodiments, a virtual machine manager is operable to manage a virtual machine (VM) that spans a plurality of hardware appliances. The virtual machine manager receives a request to provide a service to a device, selects an application instance to provide the service to the device, and forwards the request for the service to the selected application instance. The selected application instance is running in an instance of the virtual machine associated with a first hardware appliance. The virtual machine manager determines session data associated with the service and provides the session data associated with the service to a second hardware appliance of the VM in order to enable the VM to provide high availability of the service to the device.