Patent ID: 8260792

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for managing data objects, comprising: in response to a request received through an interface of a storage system, wherein the request is to modify or delete content of a data object stored in the storage system, determining whether the data object should be committed as a write-once-read-many (WORM) object, wherein the data object is not the WORM object prior to receiving the request, and wherein determining whether the data object should be committed as the WORM object is only performed when the request to modify or delete content of the data object is received, wherein determining whether the data object should be committed as the WORM object comprises determining whether the data object has been modified within a last predetermined period of time, including comparing a time attribute of the data object against a current time, wherein if a difference between the time attribute and the current time is greater than a predetermined threshold, the data object should be committed as the WORM object, and wherein the time attribute comprises one of modified time (mtime) and creation time (ctime) attributes associated with the data object; committing the data object as the WORM object if it is determined that the data object should be committed as the WORM object, wherein the data object is committed as the WORM object if the data object has not been modified within the last predetermined period of time; modifying or deleting the data object according to the request if it is determined that the data object should not be committed as the WORM object; and rejecting the request if it is determined that the data object should be committed as the WORM object.