Patent ID: 8060479

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for transparently restoring data using file-streaming protocols, at least a portion of the method being performed by a client-side computing device comprising at least one processor, the method comprising: identifying an attempt by a user to access a portion of a backed-up file that appears to be present on the client-side computing device but is not present on the client-side computing device; transmitting a request to a server to transparently restore the portion of the backed-up file to the client-side computing device; receiving only the portion of the backed-up file from the server via a file-streaming protocol; transparently restoring the portion of the backed-up file to the client-side computing device such that the portion of the backed-up file appears to have been present on the client-side computing device at the time the user initiated the attempt to access the portion of the backed-up file; enabling the client-side computing device to access the portion of the backed-up file prior to restoring the remainder of the backed-up file; receiving the remainder of the backed-up file from the server on an as-needed basis: wherein receiving the remainder of the backed-up file on an as-needed basis comprises: transmitting a request to the server to transparently restore another portion of the backed-up file comprising less than the remainder of the backed-up file; receiving the other portion of the backed-up file from the server via the file-streaming protocol; transparently restoring the other portion of the backed-up file to the client-side computing device such that the user is unaware that the other portion of the backed-up file is being restored; enabling the client-side computing device to access the other portion of the backed-up file prior to restoring the remainder of the backed-up file.