Patent ID: 8495013

Claim:
A distributed storage system comprising: non-transitory computer-readable recording media configured to store data in one or more locations; a plurality of data nodes configured to be grouped into a plurality of zone groups based on locations of the plurality of data nodes and configured to store a target object and replicas of the target object; at least one selection agent configured to select multiple target zone groups based on locations of the plurality of zone groups and the client in response to an inquiry from a proxy server and select one target data node for each one of the selected multiple target zone groups; assign priorities to the selected multiple target zone groups and data nodes belonging to the selected multiple target zone groups, wherein the priorities are determined based on user preferences and locations of the zone groups and the data nodes; a client configured to access the distributed storage system through a network, store the target object in one of the selected target data nodes which has a highest priority among the selected multiple zone groups and perform a replication process using a replication agent to store the replicas of the target object in other target data nodes; and a metadata database that holds the location information associated with the proxy server is updated based on a data node list that includes information on the target zone groups and the target data nodes storing the target object and the replicas.