Patent ID: 7237027

Claim:
A file storage system, comprising: a plurality of system servers connected to one another by a communication network having at least one node, wherein each system server includes at least one process that provides a file storage system function independent of the states of other system servers in response to a request to the file storage system that is capable of affecting multiple system servers, and wherein the file storage system functions include: at least one file storage gateway service that includes a plurality of file storage gateway servers, each file storage gateway server hosting at least one client process that can process client requests and pass the resulting set of requests to the file storage system and including a process that is capable of accessing at least one server directory to determine the location of a system server that can service a generated client request; at least one file data storage server service that includes a plurality of file data storage servers, each file data storage server including a process that accesses file data storage objects stored in the storage system independent of the file data storage objects accessed by other file data storage servers; and at least one file metadata service that includes a plurality of file metadata servers, each file metadata server including a process that accesses a set of file metadata independent of the file metadata sets accessed by other file metadata servers; wherein the at least one instance of a file data storage server service and at least one instance of a file metadata service are separate from each other such that the services are scalable independently of each other; and wherein the at least one file storage gateway service is capable of locating a file metadata server corresponding to a file in response to a request, receiving metadata for the file from the located file metadata server, and locating one or more corresponding file data storage servers for the file using the received metadata, wherein the file metadata server and file data storage server are separate and independent from each other.