Patent ID: 8180813

Claim:
A network storage system comprising: a distributed object store to store a set of data objects, the distributed object store implemented in one or more network nodes and configured to provide location-independent addressing of data objects; a presentation module configured to generate a presentation layer functionally over the distributed object store and configured to provide a NAS interface and a Web Service interface, to allow access to data objects stored in the distributed object store; a metadata subsystem configured to store metadata relating to data objects stored in the distributed object store, including user-defined tags, and to allow data objects to be identified and retrieved by searching the metadata including the user-defined tags in response to user-specified search queries; a policy-based content management subsystem configured to manage data objects stored in the distributed object store according to user-specified policies, based on stored metadata associated with the data objects; and an object location subsystem configured to locate data objects stored in the network storage system in response to requests from storage clients, by using a mapping structure that represents mappings between location-independent object identifiers of the data objects and corresponding location identifiers of the plurality of data objects.