Patent ID: 8341648

Claim:
A method, comprising: receiving data representative of user-defined criteria, the user-defined criteria defining an event that triggers initiation of at least one virtualization operation; utilizing the user-defined criteria to generate a virtualization heuristic that includes a set of one or more rules for controlling the at least one virtualization operation; implementing the virtualization heuristic within a virtualization engine configured to use the virtualization heuristic to monitor, at an operating system kernel level, for the event defined by the user-defined criteria and to automatically control the at least one virtualization operation; detecting, by the virtualization engine, an occurrence of the event defined by the user-defined criteria, wherein detection of the occurrence of the event triggers initiation of the at least one virtualization operation; and automatically performing the at least one virtualization operation in response to the detected event, including: capturing file system and configuration activity associated with the detected event, the file system and configuration activity being associated with a base operating system, and storing data representative of the captured file system and configuration activity to a virtual layer without changing a base file system and configuration of the base operating system, wherein, when the virtual layer is enabled, access requests associated with the captured file system and configuration activity are redirected from the base file system and configuration to the virtual layer.