Patent ID: 8103632

Claim:
A method of restoring a database, comprising: selecting, for backup, at least two filegroups comprising a subset of a database, the database comprising a plurality of different filegroups, each filegroup comprising a discrete set of files or data, the subset comprising the at least two filegroups and database metadata describing the at least two filegroups, wherein the selection is based upon user-specified criteria related to the at least two filegroups and wherein the at least two selected filegroups include at least one filegroup required to partially restore the database and at least one filegroup that is not essential to partially restore the database, wherein the at least two selected filegroups are selected for backup based on a user-selected amount of time required to restore the at least two filegroups; creating a backup of the subset of the database; restoring the database subset and operating the database with the subset, wherein the database is able to resume operations in a partially-restored state; and restoring one or more additional filegroups after the database has been operating with the database subset.