Systems and methods for creating a live copy of a data object from a production system for use by third party applications. The systems and methods include receiving at least one request for a copy of production data from an application; creating a live backup copy; creating a flash copy of the live backup copy, and a flash copy bitmap; creating a modified version of the live backup copy by changing a subset of data in the live backup copy; recording the changed subset of data using the flash copy bitmap; mounting, the modified version of the live backup copy to the application; and transforming the modified version of the live backup copy back to the live backup copy when unmounting the modified version of the live backup copy of the production data from the application by applying changes associated with the flash copy bitmap to the live backup copy.