Simplifying the deployment and serviceability of commercial software environments

A method for remotely interacting with an application executing on an execution machine, wherein the application includes an installed image prepared on a preparation machine, comprises steps of:

• virtualizing the installed image on the execution machine to produce a virtually installed image, wherein the virtualizing comprises steps of:
• emulating on the execution machine an emulating element comprising a native platform of the preparation machine;
• emulating on the execution machine a virtual machine of the application;
• indirectly mapping byte content of installed image artifacts to their symbol names;
• using a manifest, maintaining a mapping between the symbol names and image artifacts which are identified by a cryptographically secure hash signature of their content;
• providing an interface performing:
• allowing a second application to interact with the emulating element;
• plugging different delivery subsystems performing semantic paging over a network;
• and
• announcing named program states or execution contexts used by the delivery subsystems to determine prefetch sequences;
• receiving data from the second application via the interface directing operation of the emulating element.