1. A network device comprising: a first subsystem comprising a set of one or more processors, the one or more processors providing a plurality of cores, each core in the plurality of cores having associated memory resources; a memory configured to store configuration information for a set of virtual machines configured for the network device; wherein, for each virtual machine in the set of virtual machines, the configuration information comprises information identifying a set of one or more cores allocated to the virtual machine from the plurality of cores, and wherein, for each virtual machine in the set of virtual machines, the memory resources associated with the set of cores allocated to the virtual machine are allocated for the virtual machine, and a second subsystem configured to cause a packet to be forwarded to a first core from a set of cores allocated to a first virtual machine from the set of virtual machines.