A data exchange process is implemented by a computer system coupled for
communication with a remote index server via a network. The process
provides for transfer of a data block from a source host having an
internal source data format, to a destination host having an internal
destination data format different from the source data format. The process
includes the steps of: determining characteristics of the source data
format by comparing the source data format to sets of data format
characteristics stored in a memory storage space of the computer system to
determine if a predetermined relationship exists between the
characteristics of the source data format and a particular one of the
sets, and if so, a source driver associated with the particular set is
accessed from memory of the computer system, the source driver being
capable of extracting a data block from the source host and converting the
format of the data block to an intermediate data format. If no
predetermined relationship exists, the process samples data from the
source host, and transmits the sampled data to the index server which
compares the sampled data to remote sets of data format characteristics
stored in a memory of the index server to determine if a predetermined
relationship exists. If a predetermined relationship exists, the server
accesses an appropriate source driver, and transmits it to the client
computer system.
