Patent attributes
The disclosed embodiments provide a system that adjusts the characteristics of a distributed filesystem using a locality policy. Two or more cloud controllers collectively manage distributed filesystem data that is stored in one or more cloud storage systems; the cloud controllers cache and ensure data consistency for the stored data. During operation, a cloud controller receives a locality policy that specifies one or more management policies for the cloud controller. The portion of the distributed filesystem's data that is managed, created, and/or cached at the cloud controller is then managed based on this locality policy. Locality policies facilitate customizing and optimizing data management for the distributed filesystem to fit the needs of an organization (e.g., specific sets of users, applications, and/or datasets).
