Patent ID: 8051095

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for accessing data through a distributed metabase, comprising: receiving a request to access data stored on a storage device; selecting at least one of multiple distributed metabases containing metadata related to the data stored on the storage device, wherein the metadata includes metadata other than file system metadata and other than metadata identifying logical locations of the data, and wherein the multiple metabases store metadata related to the data stored on the storage device, and wherein the selecting includes— determining characteristics of the multiple distributed metabases, evaluating the characteristics against one or more criteria, and selecting the at least one metabase based on the evaluation; analyzing the metadata stored at the at least one metabase to identify a set of data, wherein the set of data is less than the data stored on the storage device; based on the analysis of the metadata, associating one or more data classifications with a subset of data, wherein— the subset of data is less than the set of data, and the one or more data classifications describe characteristics of at least some of the data stored on the storage device; and, accessing the subset of data based on the metadata contained by the at least one selected metabase and the associated one or more data classifications.