Writing and Deleting Files

The clients can write and delete files from the distributed file system by using a GFS client library linked into the application that abstracts some implementation details.

For example, the applications can operate based on byte offsets of files. The client library can translate these byte offsets to the associated chunk index and communicate with the manager to retrieve the chunk handle for the provided chunk index as well as the location of associated chunk servers. Finally, it contacts the appropriate chunk server (most likely the closest one) to retrieve the data.