Patent ID: 8311985

Claim:
A computer-based method comprising: determining, based at least in part on a quantity of first backup data on a mobile source computer that is periodically unavailable, a data-transfer mode for the first backup data, the data-transfer mode selected from the group consisting of network transfer of the first backup data and physical-media transfer of the first backup data; responsive to determining the data-transfer mode, transferring the first backup data via the determined data-transfer mode to a virtualization server located at a remote destination from the source computer; wherein the physical-media data-transfer mode of the first backup data comprises physical transport of physical media to the virtualization server; and wherein the network-transfer data-transfer mode is accomplished via a network connection and does not comprise physical transport of physical media; creating a virtual machine of the source computer on the virtualization server; restoring, via the virtualization server, data of the source computer from the virtual machine; and replacing data on the source computer with the data of the source computer restored by the virtualization server such that use of the source computer is not disrupted by the restoring of the data.