Patent ID: 8260750

Claim:
A method of managing a backup of a data store, the method comprising: by a computer system comprising computer hardware: receiving user-supplied parameters for determining whether to initiate a full backup of a data store instead of a partial backup of the data store, the user-supplied parameters comprising a data change threshold and a time threshold; performing a first full backup of the data store; performing a first partial backup of the data store subsequent to performing the first full backup of the data store; monitoring the data store according to the user-supplied parameters, said monitoring comprising: determining whether an amount of data change in the data store satisfies the data change threshold, wherein said determining comprises counting modifications of data in the data store toward the data change threshold while not counting additions of data to the data store toward the data change threshold, the modifications of data comprising changes to existing data in the data store and the additions of data comprising new data added to the data store, and determining whether a period of time since the first full backup occurred satisfies the time threshold; performing a second full backup instead of a second partial backup in response to the data change threshold being satisfied; and if neither the data change threshold nor the time threshold are satisfied, performing the second partial backup of the data store.