Patent ID: 7853750

Claim:
A method, comprising: receiving a first data stream from one or more clients, wherein the first data stream comprises one or more data patterns referenced by one or more pointers stored in one or more storage devices; receiving a second data stream from the one or more clients; checking if a copy of a particular data pattern of the second data stream is already stored in a pattern repository; in response to the copy of the particular data pattern already stored in the pattern repository, storing a new pointer in the one or more storage devices to reference the copy of the particular data pattern already stored in the pattern repository based on an access time of the copy of the particular data pattern in the pattern repository being less than a predetermined access time; in response to the copy of the particular data pattern already stored in the pattern repository, storing a new copy of the particular data pattern in the pattern repository and storing the new pointer in the one or more storage devices to reference the new copy of the particular data pattern based on the access time of the copy of the particular data pattern in the pattern repository being greater than the predetermined access time; and in response to the copy of the particular data pattern not already stored in the pattern repository, storing the new copy of the particular data pattern in the pattern repository and storing the new pointer in the one or more storage devices to reference the new copy of the particular data pattern.