Data may be stored as unstructured data, for example, in files and directories in a file system. A distributed file system may store multiple copies (“replicas”) of a file and/or directory on more than one storage server machine to help ensure that, in case of a hardware failure and/or system failure, the data is still be accessible. When a server machine updates one of the replicas, such changes are typically propagated to the other replicas within the distributed file system.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds