Patent ID: 7860828

Claim:
A method for transferring data comprising: performing a synchronization operation wherein the synchronization operation uses a first processing thread to copy a first file from a first data storage to a second data storage using a first processing, and a second processing thread to copy a second file from the first data storage to the second data storage using a second connection, wherein the first file is copied substantially concurrently with the copying of the second file, wherein the first file and the second file are copied regardless of order, and wherein the synchronization operation results in a first copied file and a second copied file in the second data storage; and performing a real-time replication operation wherein the real-time replication operation updates the second data storage with changes made to the first copied file and the Second copied file as stored in the first data storage in an order determined at least in part by an order in which changes were made to the first file and the second file, respectively, as stored in the first data storage; wherein the real-time replication operation and the synchronization operation Overlap in time; wherein copying is in response to one or more synchronization commands and updating is in response to one or more real-time replication commands, and wherein the real-time replication commands are interleaved with synchronization commands and are placed in a queue along with the synchronization commands.