Patent ID: 8539136

Claim:
A method implemented and residing within a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium that is executed by a processor, the processor configured to perform the method, comprising: intercepting, by the processor, a request from a principal to access storage, the request received within a virtual machine (VM), the VM is defined as an instance of a virtual image and the request handled by a dynamic virtual image filter executed on the processor; redirecting, by the processor, from within the VM, the request to an external data store that is external to the virtual image when the request is not satisfied via storage of the VM; acting, by the dynamic virtual image filter of the processor from that which handles the VM, as a transparent proxy for all VM disk access operations within the VM to satisfy the request not available within the VM, wherein the virtual image filter of the processor redirecting the request to a virtual image customization service to locate resource that satisfy the request; wherein the customization service is executed on another processor; and receiving, by the processor, from within the VM a completion notification from the virtual image customization service on behalf of the external data store along with data to satisfy the request.