Patent ID: 8452731

Claim:
A method comprising: partitioning a fingerprint namespace among a cluster of backup servers, the fingerprint namespace comprising a universe of fingerprints for representing chunks of data, wherein each chunk is part of a data file, each backup server of the cluster of backup servers managing chunks having fingerprints corresponding to an assigned partition of the fingerprint namespace; receiving backup information from a client computing device for a block of data comprising chunks of data, the backup information including at least a fingerprint for each of the chunks and client-specific backup information, the backup information having been created on the client computing device using a process comprising: dividing data files of the block of data into the chunks; applying a cryptographic hash to each of the chunks, thereby creating a fingerprint of contents of each of the chunks; creating a chunk tree for each data file of the block of data, wherein each chunk tree includes a root chunk; compiling and preserving file metadata using a process that includes at least, for each data file of the block of data, packaging the root chunk of a corresponding chunk tree with metadata about the data file; and creating a backup tree for the block of data based on result of the compiling and preserving step; and utilizing the fingerprint for each of the chunks of data, and deduplicating the chunks of data in parallel at the cluster of backup servers in accordance with the partitioning step, the deduplicating step comprising identifying ones of the chunks of data already stored by the cluster of backup servers.