The invention provides systems and methods for continuous back up of data
stored on a computer network. To this end the systems of the invention
include a synchronization process that replicates selected source data
files data stored on the network and to create a corresponding set of
replicated data files, called the target data files, that are stored on a
back up server. This synchronization process builds a baseline data
structure of target data files. In parallel to this synchronization
process, the system includes a dynamic replication process that includes a
plurality of agents, each of which monitors a portion of the source data
files to detect and capture, at the byte-level, changes to the source data
files. Each agent may record the changes to a respective journal file, and
as the dynamic replication process detects that the journal files contain
data, the journal files are transferred or copied to the back up server so
that the captured changes can be written to the appropriate ones of the
target data files.
