Appliance server with a drive partitioning scheme that accommodates application growth in size

A data processing system comprising:

• a processor;
• input/output (I/O) facilities;
• a storage medium having at least three partitions and coupled to said processor and said I/O facilities via an interconnect;
• means for receiving via said I/O facilities an image file of an application to be installed into at least a first partition of said three partitions, wherein said image file includes files required for installation and execution of said application and, when said application requires a corresponding operating system (OS) to operate, additional files for the corresponding OS;
• and
• logic associated with said storage medium for:
• dynamically extending a size of a first one of said partitions into a disk space of a second one of said partitions responsive to a determination that said application being loaded into said first partition requires more disk space than is available in said first partition.

A computer program product comprising:

• a computer readable medium;
• and
• program code on said computer readable medium that enables growth of a hard drive partition to accommodate automatic re-provisioning of an appliance server with a new application, said program code comprising code for:
• determining from parameters provided by an image file received at control logic of said hard drive when a corresponding application to be loaded into a first partition of said hard drive requires more disk space than is available within said first partitions, wherein said image file includes files required for installation and execution of said application and, when said application requires a corresponding operating system (OS) to operate, additional files for the corresponding OS;
• responsive to said determining step, triggering said control logic to dynamically extend said first partition into an adjacent partition to provide additional disk space within said first partition equal to an amount of additional disk space required by said application;
• and
• subsequently installing said application into said first partition by initiating decompression of said image file and execution of an installation program within decompressed files of said second application.

A method for accommodating variable size files within a partitioned hard drive, said method comprising:

• receiving an image file of a new application to be installed into a first partition of said hard drive, wherein said image file includes files required for installation and execution of said application and, when said application requires a corresponding operating system (OS) to operate, additional files for the corresponding OS;
• determining from parameters of said image file when said new application requires more disk space than is available within said first partition;
• responsive to said determining step, dynamically extending said first partition into an adjacent partition to provide additional disk space within said first partition to accommodate said new application;
• and
• subsequently installing said new application into said first partition, wherein an installation of said second application also includes an installation of the corresponding operating system (OS) when said corresponding OS is required to support proper execution of said new application.