Patent ID: 7730031
Filing Date: 2010-06-01
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
1. A method for file archiving, comprising: selecting a byte differencing comparison method from two or more available differencing comparison methods for a comparison between a file stored on a client computer and an archive of the file stored on a server computer, wherein the byte differencing comparison method is automatically selected prior to the comparison in response to the client computer determining that at least one optimization criteria is satisfied, wherein the byte differencing comparison method comprises: comparing at least one byte associated with the file to at least one respective byte associated with the archive of the file; generating a first indicia of difference between the file and the archive of the file using the byte differencing comparison method; and updating the archive of the file stored on the server computer based on the first indicia of difference generated between the file and the archive of the file; and selecting a block differencing comparison method from the two or more available differencing comparison methods for the comparison between the file stored on the client computer and the archive of the file stored on the server computer, wherein the block differencing comparison method is automatically selected prior to the comparison in response to the client computer determining that the at least one optimization criteria is not satisfied, wherein the optimization criteria comprises a network connection for the client computer having bandwidth below a threshold, wherein the block differencing comparison method comprises: comparing a set of statistics representative of at least one block associated with the file to a set of statistics representative of at least one respective block associated with the archive of the file, wherein the at least one block associated with the file and the at least one respective block associated with the archive of the file each include a plurality of bytes; generating a second indicia of difference between the file and the archive of the file using the block differencing comparison method; and updating the archive of the file stored on the server computer based on the second indicia of difference generated between the file and the archive of the file.