Abstract: A data archiving system according to the invention can be deployed in a clustered network environment to perform archiving, backup, and restoring of data for clustered applications supported by the network. The archiving system generally includes an archiving server application resident at a first node, a virtual client application resident at the first node, and archiving client applications resident at other nodes within the network. The archiving server application, using the virtual client application, determines the physical location of a clustered application prior to (and, in one practical embodiment, during) the actual backup procedure. The physical location of the clustered application is processed to access a set of backup configuration files stored by the virtual client application. The backup configuration files contain information related to the manner in which the clustered application should be archived and/or restored.