Patent ID: 8275827

Claim:
A computer-implemented method comprising: configuring a distributed processing system of a plurality of distributed devices coupled to a network, wherein the plurality of distributed devices include respective client agents configured to process respective portions of a workload for the distributed processing system, wherein the respective client agents for particular distributed devices of the plurality of distributed devices have corresponding software-based network attached storage (NAS) components configured to assess unused or under-utilized storage resources in selected distributed devices of the plurality of distributed devices; representing with the corresponding software-based NAS component that the selected distributed devices respectively comprise NAS devices having an available amount of storage resources related to the unused and under-utilized storage resources for the selected distributed devices; processing one or more of data storage or access workloads for the distributed processing system by accessing data from or storing data to at least a portion of the available amount of storage resources to provide NAS service to a client device coupled to the network; and enabling at least one of the selected distributed devices to function as a location distributed device to store location information associated with data stored by the selected distributed devices through use of the respective client agents for the particular distributed device.