Patent ID: 7555644

Claim:
A method for OS image provisioning in a utility computing environment comprising: forming a pool of OS image boot-up disks in a disk array using disk array's internal disk copy routine and a golden image disk including a desired OS image, wherein forming the pool of OS image boot-up disks using the disk array's internal disk copy routine comprises: determining an upper number of OS image boot-up disks and a lower number of OS image boot-up disks for the pool of OS image boot-up disks based on a utility computing environment parameter; initializing a pool of OS image boot-up disks in the disk array with the golden image disk using the disk array's internal disk copy routine; and filling the pool of OS image boot-up disks such that the number of OS image boot-up disks in the disk array is greater than or equal to the lower number of OS image boot-up disks and lesser than or equal to the upper number of OS image boot-up disks by using the disk array's internal disk copy routine to copy the desired OS image in the golden image disk; receiving a request for an OS image boot-up disk for a computing server by the pool of OS image boot-up disks; assigning an OS image boot-up disk from the pool of OS image boot-up disks to the computing server upon receiving the request; and booting-up the computing server using the assigned OS image boot-up disk.