Lecture 3: GFS

This podcast discusses Google File System (GFS) as a case study for building big storage systems, highlighting its key role as a simple and general storage interface in distributed systems. The discussion covers the challenges in distributed storage, such as achieving high performance, fault tolerance, replication, and consistency, and how these factors create tensions in system design. The lecture explains GFS's architecture, including the master and chunk servers, and dives into the read and write processes, addressing potential failures and consistency issues. The podcast also touches on the design considerations for strong consistency, and the trade-offs made in GFS for performance reasons.