kFs

kFs is an open-source distributed file system designed to provide scalable, fault-tolerant storage for large-scale data processing in clusters and data centers. It aims to offer a POSIX-like interface with a modular architecture that can integrate with diverse storage backends and network environments.

The system follows a client-server model comprising a metadata layer and multiple storage nodes. The metadata service manages directory structure, file attributes, and access control, while storage nodes hold the actual data blocks. Data is partitioned across nodes and replicated to tolerate failures, with optional erasure coding to reduce storage overhead while maintaining durability. Caching and locality awareness are employed to improve performance on workloads with high read or write intensity.

kFs supports a range of features intended for both research and production settings. These include snapshotting and versioning for data protection, configurable replication levels, and tunable consistency models that allow applications to prioritize throughput or strong consistency as needed. The system provides a POSIX-like API and offers gateways or adapters to interact with NFS, cloud object stores, and other interfaces, facilitating integration with existing tooling and workflows. It also supports pluggable backends for different storage media, such as HDDs, SSDs, and network-attached or object-based storage.

History and development are centered around a community-driven initiative that began in the mid-2010s. Early prototypes focused on scalability in experimental clusters, with successive releases expanding stability, interoperability, and deployment options. Today, kFs is used in varied environments, from academic research to edge and data-center tasks, as a flexible foundation for distributed file storage.