Patent ID: 7945751

Claim:
A computer-implemented method comprising: generating a first disk image, said first disk image being stored in at least one persistent storage device, said first disk image being a root disk image, wherein said first disk image comprises complete content of a disk; said first disk image comprising a first software application; creating an inheritance tree comprising a first node, said first node being a root node corresponding to said root disk image; generating a second disk image of said disk based on said first disk image, said second disk image being stored in said at least one persistent storage device, said second disk image comprising at least one data block of said first disk image and at least one new data block in said at least one persistent storage device; said second disk image comprising said first software application and a second software application; said first disk image not comprising said second software application; and adding a second node to said inheritance tree, said second node corresponding to said second disk image, said second node being a child node of said root node; a hierarchy of said first node and said second node of said inheritance tree indicating an order of installation of said first software application and said second software application; wherein each node of said inheritance tree comprises a disk image name, a timestamp, and an application stack name, said application stack name indicating a most recently added software application of a disk image corresponding to said each node.