1. A method of creating a cloning image, the method comprising: determining an inventory of assets of a reference machine, the assets including hardware devices and software modules; instantiating a virtual machine based on the inventory; configuring a hardware pseudo-environment in the virtual machine based on device drivers and information required for operating system (OS) installation, said information including at least one of a device name, interrupt request (IRQ), peripheral component interconnect (PCI) slot number, and memory address: creating mock objects for components not required to be installed or connected to the reference machine; providing a compatibility mode for components required to be installed or connected to the reference machine; installing at least one of an operating system, device driver, and patch on the virtual machine; validating a behavior of at least one of an operating system, device, driver, or patch in the virtual machine; acquiring a cloning image from the virtual machine without stopping the reference machine; and deploying the cloning image to a target machine.