Patent ID: 7580950

Claim:
A system for object-based archival data storage, the system comprising: an object-based storage subsystem having respective data storage devices; at least one file presentation interface that interfaces to client platforms; an administration interface having graphical user interface (GUI) and a command line interface (CLI); a meta data subsystem for storing meta data about files, and includes a virtual file subsystem having a virtual file server (VFS); a policy subsystem that provides system rules predetermined by a user, wherein the meta data subsystem further categorizes data into classes and maps classes to policies that are stored in the policy subsystem; a scalable interconnect to couple the object-based storage subsystem, the at least one file presentation interface, the administration interface, the meta data subsystem, and the policy subsystem; and an audit module interfacing with the meta data subsystem to access and evaluate the stored meta data for the data files and object files including local file system location, object identification for data, hash, and presented file system information without accessing the object-based storage subsystem.