Patent ID: 8776053

Claim:
A system for reconfiguring a virtual server image suitable for cloud deployment, comprising: a plurality of computers executing within a cloud, each computer including a processor and one or a plurality of hypervisors provided thereon, including a first computer having a first hypervisor, and a second computer having a second hypervisor, wherein the first hypervisor and the second hypervisor are of different type requiring a different bootstrap configuration; the virtual server image, which can be executed on the one or the plurality of hypervisors, and which provides a virtual machine environment for a software application, wherein the virtual server image contains a bootable part of a virtual machine, a non-bootable part of the virtual machine, a software application code for the software application, and a software application data for the software application; and a virtual server image updater used to reconfigure contents of the virtual server image from an original content, where the original content includes a bootstrap configuration required by the first hypervisor, to a reconfigured content where the reconfigured content includes a bootstrap configuration required by the second hypervisor, which receives a virtual server image patch and uses information in the virtual server image patch to reconfigure the contents of the virtual server image from the original content where the original content includes a first configuration of bootable and non-bootable parts, to the reconfigured content where the reconfigured content includes a second configuration of bootable and non-bootable parts, to create a reconfigured virtual server image, including mounting the virtual server image as a file system that includes a plurality of directories corresponding to the bootable part and non-bootable part of the virtual machine, and the software application code and software application data for the software application, selectively modifying the file system, while mounted, and as required by the virtual server image patch, to create the reconfigured virtual server image, and distributing the modified file system as the reconfigured virtual server image, to the one or the plurality of hypervisors for execution thereon, including wherein the virtual server image patch is distributed to the computers within the cloud and applied locally on each computer, further including suspending a Java application and shutting down the virtual server image, patching the virtual server image, booting the virtual server image, and resuming the Java application.