The disclosure relates to technology for establishing communication between a remote device and a virtual machine on a computing node of the cloud-based services via the distributed network. The cloud-based services include multiple operating systems and one or more applications. In response to receiving an instruction from the remote device the virtual machine is accessed, where the virtual machine is associated with at least one of a user of the remote device and the remote device. When directed by an instruction from the remote device, the virtual machine identifies one of the operating systems in which to execute the one or more applications and transmits results, based on execution of the one or more applications by the virtual machine, to the remote device via the distributed network.