Patent ID: 7734578

Claim:
A method for performing integrated storage operations on an information store, the method comprising: initiating a first type of storage operation to be performed on an information store, wherein initiating the first type of storage operation includes selecting the first type of storage operation based on a first set of storage preferences; performing the first type of storage operation on the information store, wherein performing the first type of storage operation includes copying at least a first portion of the information store to one or more storage devices and generating first metadata which describes at least the copied first portion stored on the one or more storage devices, wherein the first metadata has a first format associated with the first type of storage operation; initiating a second type of storage operation disparate from the first of storage operation to be performed on the information store, wherein initiating the second type of storage operation includes selecting the second type of storage operation based on a second set of storage preferences, wherein the second type of storage operation differs from the first type of storage operation; and performing the second type of storage operation on the information store, wherein performing the second type of storage operation includes copying at least a second portion of the information store to one or more storage devices and generating second metadata which describes at least the copied second portion stored on the one or more storage devices, wherein the second metadata has a second format associated with the second type of storage operation, and wherein the second format of metadata is different from the first format of metadata; wherein the first type of storage operation and the second type of storage operation are performed by one or more data agents that converts the first metadata having a first format associated with the first type of storage operation and the second metadata having a second format associated with the second of storage operation into a normalized metadata format.