Patent ID: 7734593

Claim:
A method of classifying data stored within a storage management system, wherein the method is performed by a computing system having a processor and memory, the method comprising: receiving two or more criteria connected via Boolean connectors; receiving one or more user classifications to be associated with data objects that satisfy the two or more criteria within the storage management system, wherein the one or more user classifications are defined by a user, and wherein the one or more user classifications can describe characteristics of a data object and facilitate storage operations for the data object; receiving multiple data objects during a data management operation and at a data monitoring agent within the storage management system; determining which data objects in the received multiple data objects satisfy the two or more criteria; automatically associating, by the computing system, the one or more user classifications to the data objects that satisfy the two or more criteria; storing in an index the one or more user classifications as metadata associated with the data objects that satisfy the two or more criteria; and performing a data storage operation based on the one or more user classifications, by analyzing the index to identify the data objects associated with the one or more classifications; and performing the data storage operation on the identified data objects.