Patent attributes
In various embodiments, the system and method described herein provide functionality for selecting an appropriate compression algorithm and settings given a cost model. Specifically, in selecting a compression method and configuration, the described system and method use a cost model to take into account the financial cost of a number of aspects of a particular compression scenario, including, but not limited to, the cost of performing the compression/decompression and the cost of storing the data. In this manner, intelligent trade-offs can be made between CPU/computing cost and data storage/transmission cost in an environment where a dollar amount can be associated with CPU processing time and storage/transmission volume. The described system and method can make such decisions dynamically, so that compression and/or decompression operations can respond to changing conditions on the fly, thus leading to better and more cost-effective management of resources.