Asynchronous replication via file-oriented snapshots

A non-transitory computer readable medium including program instructions for execution on a processor, the program instructions configured to:

• generate a base snapshot of a distributed share used to replicate data from a source file system (FS) site over a network to a target FS site, wherein the base snapshot is a file system-level snapshot employing metadata of a virtualized file system to preserve a file system hierarchy during snapshot generation;
• generate one or more subsequent file-system level snapshots of the distributed share at the source FS site;
• perform a hierarchical construct level compare between the base and subsequent snapshots to identify altered inodes resulting from metadata corresponding to one or more changed files;
• compute deltas of the changed files wherein the deltas are associated with blocks of the changed files identified via traversal of the blocks using the altered inodes;
• and
• replicate the data corresponding to the deltas of the changed files to the target FS site.

An apparatus comprising:

• a network connecting one or more nodes of source file system (FS) sites to one or more target FS sites, each node having a processor configured to execute program instructions to:
• generate a base snapshot of a distributed share used to replicate data from a source file system (FS) site over a network to a target FS site, wherein the base snapshot is a file system-level snapshot employing metadata of a virtualized file system to preserve a file system hierarchy during snapshot generation;
• generate one or more subsequent file-system level snapshots of the distributed share at the source FS site;
• perform a hierarchical construct level compare between the base and subsequent snapshots to identify altered inodes resulting from metadata corresponding to one or more changed files;
• compute deltas of the changed files wherein the deltas are associated with blocks of the changed files identified via traversal of the blocks using the altered inodes;
• and
• replicate the data corresponding to the deltas of the changed files to the target FS site.