Google File System (GFS) Publication

Google publishes its paper on the Google File System, describing a scalable distributed file system for large, diverse datasets across commodity hardware.

Significance

GFS provided the conceptual blueprint for distributed file systems that would eventually underpin technologies like Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS), a key component for storing the raw data in early data lakes.

Key facts

Date
2003-10-13
Type
invention
Location
Google, Mountain View, CA