Indexing splitter for any pit replication

A non-transitory machine-readable medium having instructions stored therein, which when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform data backup operations, the operations comprising:

• capturing one or more file system events in a production virtual machine (VM) at an indexing splitter, the indexing splitter being an agent running in the VM;
• 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.

A data processing system, comprising:

• a processor;
• and
• a memory coupled to the processor to store instructions, which when executed by the processor, cause the processor to perform data backup operations, the operations including:
• capturing one or more file system events in a production virtual machine (VM) at an indexing splitter, the indexing splitter being an agent running in the VM;
• 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.