Patent ID: 8850426

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for managing deployment of a virtual machine (VM) in a network environment, the method comprising: receiving a deployment request for deploying a VM at a first computing system, the VM represented by a VM image stored in a second storage medium, remote from the first computing system; analyzing network and storage connectivity between the first computing system and a plurality of potential temporary hosts for deploying the VM; selecting a second computing system for deploying a second copy of the VM image from the potential temporary hosts, according to the analyzing of the network and storage connectivity between the first computing system and the potential temporary hosts; analyzing bandwidth of communication between the first computing system and the second computing system and accordingly selecting a first set of services to be provided by a first copy of the VM image; initiating copying of the VM image stored in the second storage medium to a first storage medium local to the first computing system, responsive to the deployment request, during the copying of the VM image, deploying a first VM image copy including a partial working VM image, suitable to provide the first set of services, on the first computing system; deploying the second VM image copy, including a copy of at least a sub-portion of the VM image, on the second computing system, before or during the copying, so as to provide a second set of services, monitoring service requests submitted for processing by the VM, to determine whether the service requests relate to the first or to the second set of services; and processing service requests that are associated with the first set of services by the first computing system and forwarding service requests that are associated with the second set of services from the first computing system to the second computing system for processing by the second computing system.