A
data management system or “DMS” provides an automated, continuous, real-time, substantially no
downtime data protection service to one or more data sources associated with a set of application host servers. To facilitate the data protection service, a host driver embedded in an
application server captures real-
time data transactions, preferably in the form of an event journal that is provided to other DMS components. The driver functions to translate traditional file /
database / block I / O and the like into a continuous, application-aware, output
data stream. The host driver includes an event processor. When a data protection command for a given
data source is forwarded to a host driver, the event processor enters into an initial upload state. During this state, the event processor gathers a
list of data items of the
data source to be protected and creates a data
list. Then, the event processor moves the data (as an upload, preferably one
data element at a time) to a DMS core to create initial
baseline data. In an illustrative embodiment, the upload is a
stream of granular application-aware data chunks that are attached to upload events. Simultaneously, while the baseline is uploading and as the application updates the data on the host, checkpoint granular data,
metadata, and data events are continuously streamed into the DMS core. During this upload phase, the application does not have to be shutdown.