Patent ID: 8572038

Claim:
A method for performing data replication, the method comprising: monitoring with one or more processors of a source storage system a plurality of journal entries associated with writing data to a source storage device associated with the source storage system; identifying a first journal entry of the plurality of journal entries, the first journal entry comprising a first data write operation, a first file identifier descriptor (FID) of a file to be modified by the first data write operation on the source storage device, and a first location of a first portion of the file to be modified, wherein a FID identifies a file or directory of a file system on the source storage system and is usable to construct an absolute file name for transmitting data to a replication system; identifying a second journal entry of the plurality of journal entries, the second journal entry comprising a second data write operation, a second FID of a file to be modified by the second data write operation on the source storage device, and a second location of a second portion of the file to be modified, wherein the first journal entry and the second journal entry are from the same journal; determining with the one or more processors that the first and second data write operations can be combined into a single write operation based on a determination that the first and second FIDs both correspond to a first value; combining the first and second data write operations based on said determination; constructing with the one or more processors an absolute file name by associating the first value with a short name and at least one directory name, wherein neither the first nor second journal entries comprises the absolute file name; and transmitting the single write operation and the absolute file name to a destination storage device to replay on the destination storage device the data modifications associated with the first and second write operations, wherein the destination storage device stores a replicated version of data written to the source storage device.