Patent ID: 8285850

Claim:
A computer system comprising: a backup server; a network; and a client device coupled to the backup server via the network, the client device comprises: at least two different communication components, each corresponding to one of a modem, a wireless network, and a wired network; at least two data backup rules, each of said data backup rules corresponding to a different backup procedure to back up data from the client to a remote backup server, the first backup rule backs up files of the data from the client not included by the second backup rule; a data transfer controller to associate a first backup rule with a first connection state, and a second backup rule with a second connection state, the data transfer controller comprising a main thread and a connection state thread, the first backup rule consumes more bandwidth than the second backup rule; and a policy component; in response to the client detecting the client has established a connection to the network, the data transfer controller is configured to: determine a state of the connection; forward said state to the policy component; apply the first data backup rule to the client device, in response to detecting said connection state corresponds to a first connection type transmitting data at a first speed; apply the second data backup rule to the client device, in response to detecting said connection state corresponds to a second connection type transmitting data at a second speed which is lower than the first speed; initiate a backup procedure based upon an applied backup rule of the first backup rule or the second backup rule, so that data is conveyed from the client to the backup server for backup; and the data transfer controller applies one or more exceptions to the second data backup rule in response to determining said connection corresponds to a particular user, said one or more exceptions comprise backing up files which would not be backed up according to the second data backup rule.