Patent ID: 8578337

Claim:
A method comprising: registering a plurality of remote client machines, wherein registering comprises: receiving, at a secure server site through a service portal, client information for the plurality of remote client machines, wherein the client information comprises software requirements and hardware requirements, wherein the software requirements comprise types of software at the plurality of remote client machines and wherein the hardware requirements comprise types and capacity of physical elements at the plurality of remote client machines; generating, at the secure server site, configuration data in view of the received client information; registering, at the secure server site, the generated configuration data for the plurality of remote client machines; and deploying software updates from a vendor to the registered plurality of remote client machines without interrupting activities at the registered plurality of remote client machines, wherein deploying comprises: receiving, at the secure server site, a new software configuration from the vendor for software at a first client machine in the plurality of remote client machines; instantiating, at the secure server site, a test virtual machine in view of the registered configuration data of the first client machine; testing the new software configuration in the test virtual machine by performing one or more quality assurance tests on the new software configuration to determine that the new software configuration functions properly with the registered configuration data of the first client machine; and providing the new software configuration to the first client machine for installation at the first client machine in view of the determination that the new software configuration functions properly with the registered configuration data of the first client machine.