Patent ID: 8255654

Claim:
A system for backing up computer, the system comprising: computer hardware including at least one computer processor; and a plurality of modules stored in computer-readable storage and including computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the computer processor, cause the computer hardware to perform operations defined by the computer-executable instructions, the modules including: an interface configured to receive from a user a selection of parameters associated with storage devices, each parameter associated with a parameter value and a weighting factor, the interface further configured to receive instructions from the user, the instructions including: determining an available capacity of each storage device, the available capacity being one of the parameters associated with each storage device; assigning an available capacity weighting factor to each storage device based on its available capacity, the available capacity weighting factor being higher for storage devices with a greater used capacity than for storage devices with a less used capacity; and assigning a weighting factor to each of the others of the parameters associated with each storage device; and a software scheduling module configured to determine a score for each storage device, the score based on the weighting factor and the parameter value for each of the parameters, the software scheduling module further configured to select the storage device with the largest score to receive data to be backed up from a network computer; wherein at least another one of the parameters is whether the storage device is a network data management protocol (NDMP) device, a speed of the storage device, a network bandwidth required for a backup, a current network bandwidth pattern, a distance between a network computer being backed up and the storage device, a location of the storage device, a time and day, or whether the storage device was used to perform a previous backup.