SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR MULTIPLEXED DATA BACKUP TO A STORAGE TAPE AND RESTORE OPERATIONS USING CLIENT INDENTIFICATION TAGS

A system and method for backing up and restoring data from client computers at a server computer. The server computer receives back-up data from individual client computers and inserts them into a configurable buffer within a shared memory area. The server associates a client identification (ID) tag with each set of back-up data which identifies from which particular client computer the data was received. Buffer availability flags determine whether a buffer associated with a client server is full or available. The server multiplexes the back-up data and the identification tags onto a tape. Data from a particular client is de-multiplexed from the tape by scanning all of the identification tags on the tape and pulling off the tape any data-which is associated with the identification tag corresponding to the particular client. An additional back-up scheduler unit using configurable parameters enables the entire multiplexed data back-up process to be tailored to the performance capabilities of an individual set of client/server computer resources such as by limiting how many client computer back-up jobs may be written to a single tape drive.