Patent ID: 8321915

Claim:
A system, comprising: a server; a mass storage system maintaining a plurality of buckets, each of the buckets being employed to store at least one data file; wherein the server is operable to: facilitate a use of the buckets by a plurality of entities using a plurality of clients for the storage of a plurality of files over a public network; and restrict the use of one of the buckets by one of the entities to a namespace; authenticate the one of the entities before facilitating the use of one of the buckets by the one of the entities; restrict the use by the one of the entities of the namespace of the one of the buckets to a limited period of time; a data store associated with the server, the data store maintaining a first association between the one of the buckets and the namespace in a data store, and the data store maintaining a second association between the one of the entities and the namespace in the data store, where the second association indicates the namespace to which the one of the entities is restricted; and a permission maintained in the data store, the permission governing the use of the one of the buckets by the one of the entities.