According to one embodiment, an apparatus comprises a physical computing device including a network interface configured to enable communications over a network, and at least one processor. The apparatus captures an operational state of the physical computing device including information pertaining to a state of the physical computing device resulting from operations performed by the physical computing device. The apparatus further configures the physical computing device with the operational state captured from a desired computing device to continue operations of the desired computing device on the physical computing device. Embodiments may further include a method and computer-readable media encoded with software for the storage and transfer of physical machine state in substantially the same manner described above.