US Patent 7802068 Self-organizing heterogeneous distributed storage system

The state of a computing environment is captured and heterogeneously stored on a network using self-organizing data portions. Altered portions of data of a captured computing state are replicated a plurality of times and each are embedded with a rule set that governs the distribution of the data. The rule set of each portion directs that data portion to relocate itself and remain as distant as possible from other replicated copies of that particular captured state and stored on a heterogeneous storage medium. Simultaneously, data portions that are associated with a similar file or other data structure are directed to maintain proximity with each other within a replicated copy forming a self-organized distribution of data portions.