Patent ID: 7676502

Claim:
A method, comprising: forming a data view around a recovery point using a processor; shifting the data view around the recovery point through a direction-agnostic roll algorithm that uses at least one of a roll-forward algorithm to shift the data view to a time after the recovery point and a roll-backward algorithm to shift the data view to a time before the recovery point, and wherein the data view is specific to a volume object in a kernel that imitates another volume having an original data, and wherein the data view is managed by a kernel space that processes an access request through at least one table using a meta-data created in a retention log; determining that a data integrity is consistent at the recovery point by examining data and meta-data associated with the recovery point; associating the recovery point with at least one of an automatically generated event, a user definable event, and a prepackaged event; generating a marking data at the recovery point to enable the direction-agnostic roll algorithm to operate and to reduce a recovery time objective when an algorithm is applied, wherein data adjacent to the recovery point is maintained in a log data structure that is stored in a file system as a multitude of files; coalescing data around the recovery point and other determinable recovery points at a threshold interval to reduce storage requirements; and retaining differing quantities of data around the recovery point based on a programmatic methodology that considers space utilization and a data consistency associated with the time after the recovery point and the time before the recovery point.