Patent ID: 8108427

Claim:
A method of managing users in a data management system that is configured to manage secondary copies of data files, the method comprising: identifying a preexisting user created in a security system external to the data management system, wherein the identified preexisting user has certain access rights defined by the security system; creating a group within the data management system that associates one or more users with at least one access right for performing storage operations that create secondary copies of data files from source production data files; adding the identified preexisting user to the created group within the data management system at a first time; at a later time, receiving a request from the identified preexisting user to perform a storage operation that would create a secondary copy of a particular production data file; querying the security system to determine the certain access rights of the identified preexisting user, wherein the certain access rights relate to the preexisting user's rights to access the particular production data file, and, performing the requested storage operation to create a secondary copy of the particular production data file when the certain access rights permit the identified preexisting user to perform the requested management storage operation, wherein the secondary copies are used to restore production data from which the secondary copies are created and are not actively used by a live data server or other computer system; wherein querying the security system to determine the certain access rights includes determining one or more computers to which the identified preexisting user has access, and wherein the certain access rights permit the identified preexisting user to perform the requested storage operation if the particular production data file is associated with one of the determined one or more computers; wherein adding the identified preexisting user to the created group within the data management system includes associating the created group with a reference to the identified preexisting user in the security system; and wherein the at least one access right for performing storage operations determines which copies of source data stored in multiple copies a user within the group can access.