Patent ID: 7552358

Claim:
A method, comprising: storing a first backup aggregation associated with a primary data object of a primary host within a secondary data object at a secondary host, wherein the first backup aggregation includes a first backup copy of the primary data object; storing a second backup aggregation associated with the primary data object and the secondary data object, wherein the second backup aggregation includes: a second backup copy of the primary data object; and a backup version of the secondary data object, wherein the primary data object is not duplicated in the backup version of the secondary data object, wherein the backup version of the secondary data object includes a metadata object which includes a pointer to the second backup copy of the primary data object; and restoring the secondary data object using the backup version of the secondary data object, wherein said restoring the secondary data object includes using the pointer to access the second backup copy of the primary data object to restore contents of the primary data object to the secondary data object.