Patent ID: 6883029

Claim:
A method for providing a plurality of client applications access to data in a distributed file system including a plurality of storage elements coupled to a plurality of read servers and a write server, comprising: distinguishing between read requests and write requests from the client applications; transmitting read requests from the client applications to the plurality of read servers; transmitting write requests from the client applications to the write server, each write request including a replacement data element to replace a current data element at a current storage location on one of the storage elements; reading file data by the read servers and returning the file data to the client applications in response to read requests; and in response to each write request, writing the replacement data element to a new location in one of the storage elements while leaving the current data element accessible for read requests processed by the read servers; locking a file meta-data element that references the current storage location; updating the file meta-data element to reference the new location having the replacement data element; and unlocking the file meta-data element after updating.