A system has a virtual overlay infrastructure mapped onto physical
resources for processing, storage and network communications, the virtual
infrastructure having virtual entities for processing, storage and
network communications. Virtual infrastructures of different users share
physical resources but are isolated. Each infrastructure has its own
infrastructure controller to create and configure the infrastructure. It
has a user accessible part (CFC) for configuration of that user's
infrastructure, and a user inaccessible part (UFC) able to access the
mapping and the physical resources. This increases user control to ease
system administration, while maintaining security by limiting access to
the mapping.