Patent ID: 9672243
Date: 2017-06-06
CPC Classifications: G06F

Claim:
1. In a computer system including first and second computer devices coupled to a central database device over a data communications network, the central database configured to enforce uniqueness of data across one or more fields of a deduplication table maintained by the central database, a method for data deduplication comprising: identifying a first data item by the first computer device; performing by the first computer device a lookup of the deduplication table maintained by the central database according to a rule for determining duplicacy of the first data item at a first deduplication level and determining if there is duplicacy, the deduplication table including a second entry for a second data item with content equal to content of the first data item, the second data item being associated with a second deduplication level different from the first deduplication level, wherein the second entry of the deduplication table stores a value corresponding to the content of the second data item; in response to the lookup of the lookup table based on the rule, determining by the first computer device that either there is duplicacy or there is no duplicacy of the first data item at the first deduplication level; in response to a determination that there is duplicacy of the first data item at the first deduplication level, enforcing uniqueness of data across the one or more data fields of the deduplication table in response to the request, wherein in enforcing the uniqueness, the central database denies an attempt to add a first entry in the deduplication table for the first data item at the first deduplication level; in response to a determination that there is no duplicacy at the first deduplication level, transmitting by the first computer device a request to add a first entry in the deduplication table for the first data item; and adding by the central database the first entry for the first data item at the first deduplication level, wherein the adding includes storing a value in the deduplication table corresponding to the content of the first data item, wherein the value stored in the first entry is equal to the value stored in the second entry; wherein one or more data fields of the deduplication table include a metadata hash field storing a hash value of metadata associated with the data item, wherein the metadata includes at least one of a size of the data item and a hash of the data item.