Patent ID: 7937393

Claim:
A method for accessing data associated with a first computing device using a second computing device, comprising: accessing data associated with a first computing device; receiving metadata associated with the accessed data, wherein the received metadata includes metadata other than file system metadata and other than metadata identifying logical locations of the data; storing the received metadata at a second computing device that is distinct from the first computing device; analyzing the metadata stored at the second computing device to identify a set of the accessed data, wherein the set of the accessed data is less than the accessed data; based on the analysis of the metadata, associating one or more data classifications with a subset of the accessed data, wherein— the subset of accessed data is less than the set of accessed data, and the one or more data classifications describe characteristics of the accessed data, receiving a data management request, wherein the data management request includes one or more criteria and comprises a request to— identify the subset of the accessed data based on the one or more data classifications, and perform a data storage operation on the identified subset of the accessed data; and, performing the data storage operation requested by the data management request on the identified subset of the accessed data.