Patent ID: 7904423

Claim:
A system, comprising: a plurality of computing nodes, each comprising at least one processor and memory, wherein the plurality of computing nodes is configured to implement: a web services interface configured to present a data storage web service to clients, wherein said data storage web service includes one or more web services endpoints; wherein each said web services endpoint is configured to implement a corresponding web services application programming interface (API) defining data storage web service operations that are available to ones of said clients via web services calls, and each said web services endpoint is addressable to receive said web services calls, formatted according to said web services API to specify one or more of said data storage web service operations, from ones of said clients according to an Internet-based application layer data transport protocol; wherein in response to receiving web services calls formatted according to said web services API to store data objects, each said web services endpoint is configured to store data objects supplied by said clients within said data storage web service; wherein each said web services endpoint is configured to receive web services calls formatted according to said web services API that are indicative of client requests for access to ones of said data objects, wherein a given one of said client requests for access to a given one of said data objects includes a key value corresponding to said given data object; a plurality of storage nodes configured to store replicas of said data objects, wherein each of said replicas is accessible via a respective locator value, and wherein each of said locator values is unique within said system; a keymap instance configured to store a respective keymap entry for each of said data objects, wherein for said given data object, said respective keymap entry includes said key value and each locator value corresponding to each stored replica of said given data object; and a coordinator configured to receive said client requests for access to said data objects from said web services interface, wherein in response to said given client request, said coordinator is configured to access said keymap instance to identify one or more locator values corresponding to said key value and, for a particular one of said one or more locator values, to access a corresponding storage node to retrieve a corresponding replica.