FIXED CONTENT STORAGE WITHIN A PARTITIONED CONTENT PLATFORM USING NAMESPACES, WITH VERSIONING

摘要

Archive cluster management is enhanced by logically partitioning a physical cluster that comprises a redundant array of independent nodes. Using a web-based interface, an administrator defines one or more "tenants" within the archive cluster, wherein a tenant has a set of attributes: namespaces, administrative accounts, data access accounts, and a permission mask. A namespace is a logical partition of the cluster that serves as a collection of objects typically associated with at least one defined application. Each namespace has a private file system with respect to other namespaces. This approach enables a user to segregate cluster data into logical partitions. Using the administrative interface, a namespace associated with a given tenant is selectively configured without affecting a configuration of at least one other namespace in the set of namespaces. One configuration option is "versioning," by which an administrator can elect to enable multiple versions of a same data object to be stored in association with a given namespace. Each version of the data object has associated therewith a time of storage attribute that uniquely identifies the version in the archive. Once versioning is enabled for a namespace, the administrator can set a configuration parameter identifying a time period for maintaining a version in the archive cluster, as well as a parameter for a time period for maintaining a version of the data object on a replica associated with the archive cluster. A current version of the data object is freely accessible in the archive, and a prior version may be browsed via an API. Preferably, versioning is disabled for a data object under retention.