A method in one example implementation includes receiving a plurality of command messages through a control channel and reconstructing the command messages to determine an intended command for one or more virtual machines on a server device. The command messages include one or more criteria and the intended command corresponds to an operation defined in a policy database. The method also includes determining whether the corresponding operation is permitted by comparing one or more policies associated with the operation to the one or more criteria. The method further includes sending the command messages to the server device if the operation is permitted. In more specific embodiments, the operation may include one of creating, cloning, deleting, starting, stopping, and modifying the one or more virtual machines.