A cluster system comprising a plurality of nodes networked together, each node comprising hardware configured to execute an instance of a cluster archive application that manages a plurality of archive objects; wherein the cluster archive application on each node includes: a storage manager configured to manage storing the archive objects in a local file system of the respective node; a metadata manager configured to manage the stored archive objects, wherein each of the stored archive objects managed by the metadata manager includes content data and metadata being associated with the respective content data of the respective archive object, the metadata of each archive object including policy settings for a plurality of data protection policies; and a policy manager configured to enforce the plurality of data protection policies based on the policy settings of the metadata of the archive objects, wherein policy operations performed by the policy manager obtain their parameters from the respective archive object's metadata; wherein the metadata manager is configured to manage a subset of archive objects managed in the cluster system, wherein each archive object maps between a respective external file, which corresponds to the original file's data that entered the archive for storage, and a set of internal files being chunks of data representing respective portions of the original file in the archive object; wherein the metadata manager is further configured to manage a set of archive objects replicated from other nodes of the cluster system so that a current state of every external file is always available to multiple metadata managers on plural nodes of the cluster system, and the metadata manager is further configured, if another node of the cluster system fails, to continue to provide access to an archive object previously stored on the failed node based on the managed set of copies of archive objects replicated from other nodes of the cluster system; wherein the plurality of data protection policies includes a scavenging policy which ensures against loss of metadata, the policy manager being configured, for supporting scavenging, to iterate through all files owned by the storage manager on the respective node and to validate, for each file, that the cluster system has valid metadata for the respective file and to initiate metadata repair as required in that, if metadata is found to be missing, the metadata is recreated; and wherein the plurality of data protection policies includes a protection policy which protects the integrity of archive objects, the policy manager being configured, for supporting protection, to iterate through all external files owned by the respective node and to iterate, for each respective external file, through all internal files to validate that a file pointed to by the respective internal file is reachable, and to initiate repair as required. a storage manager configured to manage storing the archive objects in a local file system of the respective node; a metadata manager configured to manage the stored archive objects, wherein each of the stored archive objects managed by the metadata manager includes content data and metadata being associated with the respective content data of the respective archive object, the metadata of each archive object including policy settings for a plurality of data protection policies; and a policy manager configured to enforce the plurality of data protection policies based on the policy settings of the metadata of the archive objects, wherein policy operations performed by the policy manager obtain their parameters from the respective archive object's metadata; wherein the metadata manager is configured to manage a subset of archive objects managed in the cluster system, wherein each archive object maps between a respective external file, which corresponds to the original file's data that entered the archive for storage, and a set of internal files being chunks of data representing respective portions of the original file in the archive object; wherein the metadata manager is further configured to manage a set of archive objects replicated from other nodes of the cluster system so that a current state of every external file is always available to multiple metadata managers on plural nodes of the cluster system, and the metadata manager is further configured, if another node of the cluster system fails, to continue to provide access to an archive object previously stored on the failed node based on the managed set of copies of archive objects replicated from other nodes of the cluster system; wherein the plurality of data protection policies includes a scavenging policy which ensures against loss of metadata, the policy manager being configured, for supporting scavenging, to iterate through all files owned by the storage manager on the respective node and to validate, for each file, that the cluster system has valid metadata for the respective file and to initiate metadata repair as required in that, if metadata is found to be missing, the metadata is recreated; and wherein the plurality of data protection policies includes a protection policy which protects the integrity of archive objects, the policy manager being configured, for supporting protection, to iterate through all external files owned by the respective node and to iterate, for each respective external file, through all internal files to validate that a file pointed to by the respective internal file is reachable, and to initiate repair as required.