Patent ID: 8370924

Claim:
A method comprising: installing a plurality of core components on a computing device; configuring the installed plurality of core components, wherein the computing device including the configured plurality of core components is configured to perform functions of a network computing device, and wherein the configured computing device is not configured to perform any unique roles for the computing device identified by a plurality of role manifests that each identifies at least one of the unique roles for the computing device and a portion of a plurality of role-specific components that corresponds to the at least one of the unique roles for the computing device; installing on the network computing device, in response to the configuring the installed plurality of core components, a portion of the plurality of role-specific components that is identified by a role manifest that corresponds to a selected one of the unique roles for the computing device; and configuring the installed portion of the plurality of role-specific components, wherein the network computing device including the configured portion of the plurality of role-specific components is further configured to perform the selected one of the unique roles for the computing device.