Patent ID: 8290899

Claim:
A method for providing a group stamping style asynchronous replication service in a data backup and recovery storage environment, comprising: intercepting storage requests at a set of source replication nodes configured to maintain a consistency group that spans multiple geographical sites, wherein at least one of the source replication nodes comprises a storage system; establishing at each source replication node an interval based on a timestamp of at least one of the source replication nodes and a maximum error associated with the timestamp; recording the intercepted storage requests intercepted within the interval to a first group of storage requests; agreeing, among the source replication nodes, on times at which to switch from recording the first group of storage requests to a second group of storage requests; associating the first group of storage requests with the timestamp and the maximum error; transmitting the first group of storage requests, the timestamp and the maximum error, from the source replication nodes to one or more target replication nodes configured to service the consistency group; and identifying the first group of storage requests at the one or more target replication nodes using the associated timestamp.