Patent ID: 7657780

Claim:
A system comprising: a number of near-line servers, including a first near-line server coupled to a second near-line server and one or more live servers that include data that provides services to a plurality of clients, wherein the number of near-line servers are coupled to one or more standby servers; and an application aware engine coupled to the near-line servers and configured to continuously shadow the live servers by generating and maintaining a replica of the data used in providing the services to the clients in computer storage associated with the first near-line server; the shadowing including generating and maintaining a replica of the first near-line server data in computer storage associated with the second near-line server; wherein the engine is configured to automatically restore the services to the clients using the one or more standby servers in response to a detected failure of the one or more live servers, the restoring including materializing a recent and useable replica of the data and copying the recent and useable replica of the data from the first near-line server to a select standby server.