Patent ID: 8825602

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for providing data protection in object-based storage environments, at least a portion of the method being performed by a computing device comprising at least one processor, the method comprising: taking a first snapshot, at a first time, of a set of partitions that store data managed by file system on a set of object storage devices, the set of object storage devices comprising a plurality of storage devices; using the first snapshot to sync the data managed by the file system with a data protection node; taking a second snapshot, at a second time, of the set of partitions that store data managed by the file system on the set of object storage devices; distributing, among the plurality of storage devices, a resource load for performing data protection by, for each storage device in the plurality of storage devices, identifying change-tracking information stored in the storage device instead of using centralized change-tracking information from a metadata server to identify at least one object that changed between the first and second times; identifying object identification information comprising: a partition identifier that identifies a partition of the changed object and comprises file system identification information that identifies the file system that manages the data that includes the changed object; an object identifier that identifies the changed object and comprises an inode number of a file that includes the changed object on the data protection node; an attribute field that includes offset information that identifies the changed object's offset within the file; using the object identification information for the changed object to deduce file identification information that identifies the file on the data protection node by reading the file system identification information, the inode number, and the offset from the object identification information; sending the changed object and the file identification information to the data protection node in order to update the file on the data protection node.