Virtual machine high availability

This invention relates to a method and apparatus for managing high availability of virtual machines. In particular this invention relates to a method and apparatus for managing the checkpoint-based high availability of a backup virtual machine in the event of an application failure on a primary virtual machine. There is described a method, system, computer program product and computer program for failure monitoring and recovery comprising: providing a first copy of an application of a first virtual machine; storing state information from the executing first application at regular checkpoints; monitoring real time state information for failure conditions; generating an interrupt from state information of a failure point; on interrupt, providing a second copy of the application for executing from the checkpoint; making a first change to the operating environment of the second copy before the failure point; and initiating execution of the second copy of the application.