A method and apparatus for providing redundancy in an Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) is provided. The hardware platform of the ATM is configured to tolerate removal of a portion of the hardware as well as insertion of a portion of the hardware without removing power from the ATM. The insertion and replacement of hardware to a powered device is termed a “hot swap”. A hot swap may be necessitated by the failure or the upgrade of a hardware component. The hot swap is detected by a software program running on top of the hardware platform. The software program may reintegrate the replacement hardware including the location of “drivers” for the replacement software. In addition, application software may be run on top of a virtual environment such as a virtual machine and/or a virtual disk environment. Should a software component fail, the virtual environment will “crash” but the ATM hardware and operating system will remain intact. If the software is fatally flawed—e.g., due to a faulty “upgrade” the older version may be “rolled back” from a previously stored virtual environment.