VMware Workstation enables you to create and execute an operating system instance within the confines of a protected environment. You can use this when developing and testing your grid environment in a number of different ways, all without affecting the host computers and enabling you to roll back installations, configurations, and other details. Using VMware in this way can also be a valid way of distributing and installing a grid across a network of machines, without affecting their operation, and, with a suitably powerful machine, of simulating an entire grid within the confines of just one or two machines.