Patent ID: 8407700

Claim:
A computer-implemented method comprising: identifying a first virtualization sublayer of a virtualized application; identifying a second virtualization sublayer of the virtualized application; determining a difference between the first virtualization sublayer and the second virtualization sublayer, wherein the difference represents the first virtualization sublayer; using the difference to create a patch configured to update an instance of the second virtualization sublayer with data from an instance of the first virtualization sublayer; deploying the patch to a remote computing device, the remote computing device comprising the instance of the second virtualization sublayer, wherein the patch represents the first virtualization sublayer; merging the instance of the first virtualization sublayer with the instance of the second virtualization sublayer, wherein: the identifying the first virtualization sublayer, the identifying the second virtualization sublayer, and the merging are performed by a computing system comprising a storage device configured to store data in the first and second virtualization sublayers, and merging the instance of the second virtualization sublayer with the instance of the first virtualization sublayer comprises merging the patch with the instance of the second virtualization sublayer on the remote computing device.