1. An article of manufacture comprising a non-transitory computer readable storage medium having computer readable instructions tangibly embodied thereon which, when implemented, cause a computer to carry out a plurality of method steps comprising: obtaining documentation of at least one performance parameter of two or more virtual machines each running on a respective physical machine; obtaining: (i) a first request for a virtual machine exchange from a user of a first virtual machine, wherein the first request comprises a preference for at least one desired virtual machine performance parameter; and (ii) a second request for a virtual machine exchange from a user of a second virtual machine, wherein the second request comprises a preference for at least one desired virtual machine performance parameter; matching the first request with the second request upon determining that: (i) the first virtual machine includes the at least one desired virtual machine performance parameter from the second request, and (ii) the second virtual machine includes the at least one desired virtual machine performance parameter from the first request; and exchanging the first virtual machine with the second virtual machine based upon matching the first request with the second request and without assistance from a cloud provider, wherein said exchanging comprises: re-booting each of the first virtual machine and the second virtual machine to a stateless mode; reading one or more items of data from the first virtual machine; writing the one or more items of data from the first virtual machine to a shared storage component; reading one or more items of data from the second virtual machine; writing the one or more items of data from the second virtual machine to a persistent storage component associated with the first virtual machine; reading the one or more items of data from the first virtual machine from the shared storage component; and writing the one or more items of data from the first virtual machine from the shared storage component to a persistent storage component associated with the second virtual machine; wherein at least one of the plurality of method steps is carried out by a computer device.