Patent ID: 7246200

Claim:
A computer accessible storage medium comprising instructions which, when executed: establish a virtual machine on a computer system; trap reads by the virtual machine to an image of a set of software resources to be provisioned on the computer system; and for each read: (a) check a first storage from which the computer system is configured to boot for a block identified in the read, wherein the block is included within the image of the set of software resources; (b) if the block is stored in the first storage, supply the block from the first storage in response to the read; and (c) if the block is not stored in the first storage: fetch at least the block from an image repository system that stores the image; store the block in the first storage; and supply the block in response to the read; and wherein the instructions, when executed: detect an initialization of a device driver for the first storage within the virtual machine, the device driver coded to perform (a), (b), and (c) in response to read requests to the first storage; and exit the virtual machine in response to detecting the initialization.