Patent ID: 8433861

Claim:
A method of accessing an archival storage system through media servers, the method comprising: initiating one or more read operations, wherein each read operation of the one or more read operations is a backup duplication operation, a backup verification operation, or a synthetic backup operation, the each read operation is targeted to a corresponding plurality of the media servers, the corresponding plurality of the media servers is specific to the each read operation, and the corresponding plurality of the media servers is specific for reading backup data from the archival storage system; delegating the each read operation to each of the corresponding plurality of the media servers until one media server of the corresponding plurality of the media servers is available to service the each read operation, wherein the each read operation specifies at least one of a default media server to be used, and a preferred order of media servers to be employed; and reading the backup data specified by the each read operation at the one media server of the corresponding plurality of the media servers.