Patent ID: 8726275

Claim:
A method for cloning a virtual machine belonging to a virtual computer environment, the method comprising: retrieving application information about applications available in a parent virtual machine to be cloned; retrieving virtual-disk information about a plurality of virtual disks of the parent virtual machine containing the available applications; identifying a target environment on which a clone is to run; retrieving target information about the target environment; selecting a subset of the available applications as applications to be included in the clone, wherein the selecting is based on the application information, the virtual-disk information, and the target information; identifying a subset of virtual disks among the plurality of virtual disks and a portion of at least one of the subset of virtual disks including the selected subset of available applications; calculating the clone by selecting the identified portion of the at least one of the subset of virtual disks, wherein the clone includes the selected portion of the at least one of the subset of virtual disks and excluding other portions of the subset of virtual disks; and generating, based on the calculating, the clone to the target environment.