diff --git a/stress/state.py b/stress/state.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c7eac37
--- /dev/null
+++ b/stress/state.py
@@ -0,0 +1,41 @@
+# Copyright 2011 Quanta Research Cambridge, Inc.
+#
+#    Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
+#    you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
+#    You may obtain a copy of the License at
+#
+#        http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+#
+#    Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+#    distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+#    WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+#    See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+#    limitations under the License.
+"""A class to store the state of various persistent objects in the Nova
+cluster, e.g. instances, volumes.  Use methods to query to state which than
+can be compared to the current state of the objects in Nova"""
+
+
+class State(object):
+
+    def __init__(self, **kwargs):
+        self._max_vms = kwargs.get('max_vms', 32)
+        self._instances = {}
+        self._volumes = {}
+
+    # machine state methods
+    def get_instances(self):
+        """return the instances dictionary that we believe are in cluster."""
+        return self._instances
+
+    def get_max_instances(self):
+        """return the maximum number of instances we can create."""
+        return self._max_vms
+
+    def set_instance_state(self, key, val):
+        """Store `val` in the dictionary indexed at `key`."""
+        self._instances[key] = val
+
+    def delete_instance_state(self, key):
+        """Delete state indexed at `key`."""
+        del self._instances[key]