Patent ID: 7610285

Claim:
A computer-implemented method of classifying objects, comprising: providing a set of user-configurable services from a classification pipeline server machine to a plurality of filesystem client machines across a network via an interface for a classification pipeline, wherein said classification pipeline comprises a plurality of processing layers and said layers comprise a first layer for extracting system metadata, a second layer for extracting security information, a third layer for extracting user directory information, a fourth layer for removing duplication, a fifth layer for determining a file type based on content, a sixth layer for converting said content into text, a seventh layer for removing ambiguity from said text, an eighth layer for extracting keywords from said text, a ninth layer for extracting raw content-based entities from said text, and a tenth layer for extracting text patterns from said text; receiving at said classification pipeline server machine through said interface for said classification pipeline a request from a filesystem client machine to obtain information on an object in a filesystem; obtaining or extracting metadata on or about said object; tagging or classifying said object according to a set of classification rules expressed across said metadata; formulating a response at said classification pipeline server machine, wherein said response comprises said metadata, data contained by said object, a classification of said object, tagged entities found within content of said object, or a combination thereof; and communicating said response from said classification pipeline server machine to said filesystem client machine.