APPARATUS, SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR INTEGRATED CUSTOMIZATION OF MULTIPLE DISK IMAGES INDEPENDENT OF OPERATING SYSTEM TYPE, VERSION OR STATE

• US 20100037207A1
• Filed: 08/06/2008
• Published: 02/11/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 08/06/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Lenovo PC International Limited (Lenovo Group Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Lenovo PC International Limited (Lenovo Group Ltd.)
• Inventors: Harris, Franklin Wayne, Chambers, Howell Jack JR., Karner, David Edward, North, James Andrew
• Granted Patent: US 9,317,274 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 717/121
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/63 Image based installation; Cloning; Build to order

Abstract

An apparatus, system, and method are disclosed for customizing a disk image. A base image is booted and the desired customizations are applied and captured using a known method. A maintenance environment is booted and a builder module incorporates the captured customizations into an integrated package. If user input is required then custom menus are also defined. A target operating system, independent of the base image, is hooked to invoke an injector module. The operating system is booted from the maintenance environment thereby invoking the injector module. The customizations from the integrated package together with any obtained from the custom menus are injected into the operating system. A customized image of the operating system is then saved, to be deployed to other computers or further customized as required.

Claims

1. An apparatus comprising:

a single integrated package of customizations;

a builder module configured to capture customizations applied to a base disk image and incorporate the customizations into the integrated package; and

an injector module configured to programmatically apply the customizations from the integrated package to a target disk image, independent of the base disk image.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising one or more custom menus generated by the builder module to obtain customization information which was not among the customizations applied to the base disk image.

3. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein at least a part of the customization information is inferred from a user characteristic obtained via the custom menus.

4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the integrated package is independent of a differing characteristic between the base disk image and the target disk image.

5. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the differing characteristic is operating system type.

6. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the differing characteristic is operating system version.

7. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the differing characteristic is operating system state.

8. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the operating system state is whether system preparation has been performed.

9. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the integrated package contains customizations selected from the set consisting of domain, container, geographical location, network profile, wireless settings, email, data migration, application installation, and custom menus.

10. A system comprising:

a single integrated package of customizations;

a builder module configured to capture customizations applied to a base disk image and incorporate the customizations into the integrated package;

one or more custom menus generated by the builder module to obtain customization information which was not among the customizations applied to the base disk image;

an injector module configured to programmatically apply the customizations from the integrated package and from the custom menus to a target disk image, independent of the base disk image;

a storage system to store the integrated package; and

a computer upon which to run the builder module and the injector module.

11. The system of claim 10, further comprising a maintenance environment running on the computer to host the builder module and the injector module.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the maintenance environment is at least partially firmware-based.

13. The system of claim 11, wherein the maintenance environment is at least partially operating-system-based.

14. The system of claim 10, wherein the storage system is distributed.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein the storage system stores multiple instances of the integrated package having varying degrees of customization.

16. A computer program product comprising a computer readable medium having computer usable program code executable to perform operations for customizing a disk image, the operations of the computer program product comprising:

building a single integrated package of customizations by capturing customizations applied to a base disk image and incorporating the customizations into the integrated package;

generating one or more custom menus to obtain customization information which was not among the customizations applied to the base disk image; and

injecting the integrated package by programmatically applying the customizations from the integrated package and from the custom menus to a target disk image, independent of the base disk image.

17. The computer program product of claim 16, wherein the computer usable program code is executable in a maintenance environment.

18. The computer program product of claim 17, wherein the maintenance environment is at least partially firmware-based.

19. The computer program product of claim 17, wherein the maintenance environment is at least partially operating-system-based.

20. A method for customizing a disk image, the method comprising the steps of:

loading a base disk image;

applying customizations;

capturing the customizations;

incorporating the customizations into a single integrated package;

loading a target disk image, independent of the base disk image;

injecting the integrated package by programmatically applying the customizations from the integrated package to the target disk image to yield a customized target disk image; and

saving the customized target disk image.

21. The method of claim 20, further comprising a step of generating one or more custom menus to obtain customization information which was not among the customizations applied to the base disk image.

22. The method of claim 20, wherein the step of injecting comprises hooking an operating system loaded from the target disk image to automatically invoke one or more programs to apply the customizations while the operating system is booting.

23. The method of claim 22, wherein hooking further comprises enabling autologon so as to not halt the operating system from booting unattended.

24. The method of claim 20, further comprising a step of saving data from a computer, as specified by data migration information in the integrated package, and the step of injecting further comprising restoring the data to the computer.

25. The method of claim 20, further comprising a step of loading the customized target disk image onto one or more computers, thereby cloning the computers.