Patent ID: 8387045
Filing Date: 2013-02-26
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
1. A method of creating a cloning image, the method comprising: determining an inventory of assets of a reference machine, the assets including hardware devices and software modules; instantiating a virtual machine based on the inventory; configuring a hardware pseudo-environment in the virtual machine based on device drivers and information required for operating system (OS) installation, said information including at least one of a device name, interrupt request (IRQ), peripheral component interconnect (PCI) slot number, and memory address, wherein the configuring includes: installing at least one of an operating system, device driver, and patch on the virtual machine; validating a behavior of at least one of an operating system, device, driver, or patch in the virtual machine; acquiring a cloning image from the virtual machine without stopping the reference machine; and deploying the cloning image to a target machine.