Patent ID: 8595191

Claim:
A system for analyzing a secondary copy of a set of data, the system comprising: a processor; a memory; a snapshot component configured to create a snapshot of a set of data at a specific point in time, wherein the set of data includes multiple data objects; a copy component configured to copy the snapshot to a storage device, wherein copying the snapshot copies at least a portion of the set of data to the storage device; an interface component configured to provide an interface to the snapshot stored on the storage device, wherein: the interface provides access to copies of the multiple data objects stored on the storage device, and the interface can be used to also access copies of data objects created as a result of storage operations other than storage operations that create snapshots; a component configured to: access at least some of the copies of the multiple data objects using the interface; and perform at least one data management operation on the accessed copied data objects, wherein the at least one data management operation includes: indexing content of the accessed copied data objects and adding information regarding the content to an index; or associating the accessed copied data objects with one or more classifications and storing the one or more classifications in a database of metadata; or identifying one or more data objects and tagging the identified one or more data objects with one or more attributes; and an index component configured to create an index associated with the snapshot. wherein the index includes context information related to logical locations of the copies of multiple data objects referenced by the snapshot. and wherein the interface component utilizes the index to provide the interface to the snapshot stored on the storage device.