Patent ID: 8285681

Claim:
A system to provide cloud-based data management services, wherein the system is communicatively coupled to multiple client computers via at least one network, and wherein the system is communicatively coupled to multiple cloud storage sites, the system comprising: an object server node, including a secondary storage computing device, configured to create, on multiple, different cloud storage sites, secondary copies from logical groups of data objects, wherein the object server node further comprises— an object server agent configured to: receive data objects from the multiple client computers; and provide a web-based interface to the multiple client computers to permit the multiple client computers to write, read, retrieve, and manipulate the data objects received by the object server agent and stored as secondary copies of the data objects on the cloud storage sites; a data ingestion database configured to record information about each data object received by the object server agent from the multiple client computers, wherein the recorded information for each data object includes two or more of the following: a unique token or universal resource identifier that identifies the data object; a client computer or a user from which the data object was received; a sub-client identifier that identifies a logical container and associated storage policy parameters that dictate handling or management of data objects within the logical container; a location of an instance of the data object within the multiple cloud storage sites; a location of deduplication information pertaining to the data object; and a cryptographically unique identifier for the data object; and wherein the secondary storage computing device is further configured to perform at least one of the following operations before copying the logical group of data objects to at least one of the cloud storage sites— content indexing each data object in the logical group; performing deduplication on the data objects in the logical group; and encrypting the data objects in the logical group; wherein the object server node provides a REST interface for the multiple client computers; wherein the object server node includes a first set of network connections to the multiple client computers, wherein the multiple client computers lack a dedicated data agent or network client agent configured to communicate with the object server node, but the multiple client computers instead communicate with the object server node using standard client-based communication components including existing local area network (LAN) protocols or existing wide area network (WAN) protocols, and wherein the object server node includes a second, different set of network connections to the multiple cloud storage sites using existing LAN protocols or existing WAN protocols.