People run Redis mostly in Linux-in-a-VM (with Redis being the only "user-serving" process) already, though, no? I would think Redis-as-the-entire-VM would be less to think about, operation-wise, at least if your cloud or data-center templates its VMs with something like EC2 AMIs. You would just launch a "Redis appliance" AMI and move on.
It's a feeling less of maintaining boxes, and more equivalent to paying a Redis-as-a-Service provider.
