Patent ID: 8661063

Claim:
A method of data sharing among multiple filer entities, at least one of which creates and exports to a cloud data store one or more structured data representations comprising a versioned file system, wherein filer entities do not interact with one another, comprising: receiving information from which a sharing group that includes two or more of the multiple filer entities is configured; and enabling sharing, as a volume, of the one or more structured data representations created and exported by the at least one filer entity by at least one other of the filer entities; and after sharing is enabled with respect to the one or more structured data representations, managing distribution, using software executing in a hardware machine, of a single, shared version identifier among the at least one filer entity and the at least other of the filer entities such that one and only one of the filer entities sharing the volume are enabled to create a new version of the versioned file system having that version identifier.