Patent ID: 8005797

Claim:
A method for continuous data protection on a computer system, the method comprising: creating a list of protected data objects and a list of objects excluded from protection, the protected data objects having a plurality of data-sets, the data objects being files or folders; creating a full file-level backup of the protected data objects; generating intermediate pass-through snapshots for the protected data objects during a write attempt into an open protected data object, wherein the pass-through snapshot includes identifiers of the data-sets and a bitmap reflecting changes in the data-sets of the protected data objects; creating active snapshots based on the pass-through snapshots, the active snapshots reflecting latest states of the protected objects; and creating incremental backups from the active snapshots, wherein each pass-through snapshot has a plurality of control bits assigned to each of the data-sets in the bitmap and wherein the control bits indicate that the data-set has been changed during a continuous data protection period that begins when a write file request is received.