US Patent 7698318 Automatically determining file replication mechanisms

A backup administrator can backup files from a production server on any of a plurality of different bases. In particular, some files can be replicated on a changed-byte basis. In other cases, files can be backed up by replicating updated copies of the entire file, or even byte blocks of the file. Determinations as to how a replication agent will back up a certain file or set of files can be made by a backup administrator, automatically through a predefined logic, or dynamically based on defined criteria. Corresponding agents at the production server can then flag these files as indicated. Thus, at a later point, when the DPM server requests the updates of each file, the production server can either send over copies of the changed file bytes, entire copies of the changed file itself, or even changed blocks of a file, as appropriate.