Patent ID: 7831787

Claim:
A method for providing data protection, comprising: running a first storage application on a host operating system on a computer architecture that includes a storage device storing a raw data set, an archive storage mechanism and a first hardware subsystem; storing, by the first storage application a plurality of versions of the raw data set in the archive storage mechanism; running a second storage application on a virtualization layer on a second hardware subsystem of the computer architecture, wherein the virtualization layer operates on the second hardware subsystem and presents a representation of a the first hardware subsystem of the computer architecture to the second storage application; and generating, by a recovery module of the second storage application, a recovered version of the raw data set based on the plurality of versions of the raw data set stored in the archive storage mechanism, wherein the virtualization layer shields the second storage application from the second hardware subsystem and allows the second hardware subsystem to be different from the hardware subsystem associated with the first storage application, wherein the recovered version is recovered on the representation of the first hardware subsystem presented by the virtualization layer operating in the second hardware subsystem.