Patent ID: 8924920

Claim:
A method comprising: storing recipes in a repository, wherein each of the recipes describe the bits that make up applications and the minimum operating system included in a software appliance; receiving, by a processor, a request describing a role, the request comprising a unique user identifier; identifying, by the processor, a first software appliance that comprises an application to perform the role and a minimum operating system for the application; building the first software appliance by retrieving, based on a first recipe for the first software appliance, bits of the applications and the bits of the minimum operating system for the first software appliance; appending the unique user identification and a unique serial number to the first software appliance; storing the unique user identification and the unique serial number associated with the first software appliance; determining update bits of a binary image to update the first software appliance; adding the update bits of the binary image to the first software appliance; identifying an instance of the first software appliance in view of the stored unique serial number and the stored unique user identification; providing the identified instance of the first software appliance to a system associated with the unique user identification; and updating the identified instance of the first software appliance in view of the stored unique serial number and the stored unique user identification.