US Patent 9766921 Fast-booting application image using variation points in application source code

A method and apparatus for configuring an overlay network are provided. In the method and apparatus, an application source comprising an executable portion is obtained. A computer system instance is caused to execute at least some of the executable portion, and a snapshot of the computer system instance after partial but incomplete execution of the executable portion is obtained such that the snapshot is usable to instantiate another computer system instance to continue execution of the executable portion from a point in execution at which the snapshot was obtained.