An example method includes setting up a secure channel between a blade and a provisioning server in a network environment, downloading an image of a virtual machine monitor (VMM) from the provisioning server to the blade through the secure channel, and booting the image to instantiate the VMM on the blade. The blade and the provisioning server are mutually authenticated and authorized with a plurality of parameters. Booting the image may include loading the image on a memory element of the blade and transferring control to the image. In some embodiments, booting the image includes modifying a root file system of the image by adding the daemon such that an agent is included in the root file system. The agent can download another image corresponding to an operating system of a virtual machine.