Method and system for no downtime resychronization for real-time, continuous data protection

A system for protecting a data source associated with a host in a first processing environment, comprising:

• a processor;
• a data structure having a list of data items associated with the data source;
• and
• a computer program stored on a computer recordable medium, comprising:
• code executed in the processor and responsive to initiation of a data protection service for transferring to a data store remote from the first processing environment a continuous, application-aware data stream, the continuous, application-aware data stream being generated by capturing data changes associated with one or more events associated with the data source, the data stream comprising, for each event, data identifying the event, given metadata, and the data changes;
• and
• code executed in the processor and responsive to information in the data structure for synchronizing a state of given data at the host with a state of the given data at the data store by the following method:
• ordering into the data structure a set of data items that reference the data source;
• flagging the data items in the set of data items that are out of synchronization;
• requesting metadata from the data store;
• using the metadata received from the data store to identify at least one data item in the set of data items that is out of synchronization with a corresponding data item in the remote data store;
• and
• with respect to the at least one data item in the set of data items that is out of synchronization, generating a difference value;
• and
• placing the difference value into the continuous, application-aware data stream;
• wherein the synchronization occurs as the continuous, application-aware data stream continues to be generated and transferred to the data store for data protection.

A machine-implemented method of synchronizing data as a data protection service, comprising:

• monitoring and capturing real-time events as an application interfaces to a local data store in the first processing environment;
• forwarding the real-time events to a data store remote from the first processing environment as a continuous, application-aware data stream;
• ordering into a sorted data structure a set of data items associated with an application executing in a first processing environment, each data item having a pointer associated therewith;
• flagging the set of data items to identify one or more data items that may be are out of synchronization with the associated data items in the data store remote from the first processing environment;
• and
• processing the flagged data item in the set of data items as follows:
• (a) requesting metadata from the data store;
• (b) receiving the metadata from the data store;
• (c) using the metadata to make a determination that the flagged data item is out of synchronization with respect to an associated data item in the data store;
• (d) upon determining that the flagged data item is out of synchronization with respect to the associated data item in the data store, placing a difference value into the continuous, application-aware data stream;
• and
• (e) unflagging the data item;
• wherein the flagging and processing steps occur as the continuous, application-aware data stream continues to be generated and transferred from the first processing environment to the data store for data protection.