Patent ID: 8903938

Claim:
A method for a computing system that hosts multiple virtual machine nodes to enhance access of the hosted virtual machine nodes to remote data, the method comprising: under control of a node manager software system that is executing on the computing system to manage operations of the multiple virtual machine nodes, intercepting communications sent from the virtual machine nodes to remote network-accessible Web services provided by remote computing systems, one or more of the intercepted communication being sent to a first remote Web service to obtain functionality provided by the first remote Web service, and one or more other of the intercepted communications being sent to a distinct second remote Web service in order to retrieve requested data stored by the second remote Web service, the second remote Web service providing data to clients by transmitting data stored on storage devices of the second remote Web service via one or more intermediate devices of the second remote Web service, the first and second remote Web services being separated from the computing system by one or more intervening computer networks, and the node manager software system not being part of either of the first and second remote Web services; for each of the one or more intercepted communications sent to the first remote Web service, forwarding the intercepted communication to the first remote Web service over the One or more intervening computer networks without altering the forwarded communication; and for each of the one or more other intercepted communications sent to the second remote Web service, automatically altering the intercepted communication by: identifying one or more of the storage devices of the second remote Web service that store the data requested by the virtual machine node that sent the intercepted communication; altering the intercepted communication to obtain the requested data directly from the identified storage devices of the second remote Web service such that the requested data will not be transmitted via the one or more intermediate devices of the second remote Web service; and sending the altered communication to the second remote Web service over the one or more intervening computer networks on behalf of the virtual machine node that sent the intercepted communication.