Patent attributes
A method, apparatus, and system for transmitting file system metadata from an indexing splitter running in a VM to a source side RPA is disclosed. The operations comprise: capturing one or more file system events in a production virtual machine (VM) at an indexing splitter; transmitting file system metadata representing the captured file system events from the indexing splitter to a data splitter, the data splitter being an agent running on a host system hosting the VM; transmitting the file system metadata inside one or more special input/output (I/O) commands associated with a predetermined tag from the data splitter to a source side replication protection appliance (RPA) alongside regular storage system I/O command data; identifying the special I/O commands at the source side RPA based on the predetermined tag; and recovering the file system metadata from the special I/O commands at the source side RPA.