Patent ID: 8612393

Claim:
An application server disk image generating apparatus for providing customized application content to any of a plurality of application servers having different application versions, comprising: a basic disk image generating means for generating and storing basic disk images for basic programs used by the server; an incremental disk image generating means for generating a plurality of different incremental disk images comprising one incremental disk image for each application having a heritage relationship with a basic program, wherein new disk images generated for each application are compared to stored basic disk images, the basic disk images are not repeated in the incremental disk images, and the incremental disk images comprise any disk image parts that were not found in the basic disk images and an image profile describing the heritage relationships for parts which are shared with the stored basic disk image; and an image profile generating means for generating an image profile for each of the basic disk images and the incremental disk images; and a distribution server for distributing disk images and corresponding image profiles to the client in response to at least one of a request to add or update the disk image received from a client already having said basic disk images and an automatic addition or update according to pre-settings of a customer, wherein the distribution server further comprises: a receiving apparatus for receiving the request to add or update the disk image from the client; a querying apparatus for querying an image profile matching the image profile of the requested disk image in the image repository, and a distribution apparatus for distributing the image profile output by said querying apparatus and the corresponding disk image to the client via the Internet, thereby providing customized application content to one of a plurality of application servers having different application versions.