VOOZH about

URL: https://thenewstack.io/chubaofs-the-cloud-native-computing-foundations-speedy-new-distributed-file-system/

⇱ ChubaoFS: The Cloud Native Computing Foundation's Speedy New Distributed File System - The New Stack


TNS
SUBSCRIBE
Join our community of software engineering leaders and aspirational developers. Always stay in-the-know by getting the most important news and exclusive content delivered fresh to your inbox to learn more about at-scale software development.
REQUIRED
It seems that you've previously unsubscribed from our newsletter in the past. Click the button below to open the re-subscribe form in a new tab. When you're done, simply close that tab and continue with this form to complete your subscription.
The New Stack does not sell your information or share it with unaffiliated third parties. By continuing, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Welcome and thank you for joining The New Stack community!
Please answer a few simple questions to help us deliver the news and resources you are interested in.
REQUIRED
REQUIRED
REQUIRED
REQUIRED
REQUIRED
Great to meet you!
Tell us a bit about your job so we can cover the topics you find most relevant.
REQUIRED
REQUIRED
REQUIRED
REQUIRED
REQUIRED
Welcome!

We’re so glad you’re here. You can expect all the best TNS content to arrive Monday through Friday to keep you on top of the news and at the top of your game.

What’s next?

Check your inbox for a confirmation email where you can adjust your preferences and even join additional groups.

Follow TNS on your favorite social media networks.

Become a TNS follower on LinkedIn.

Check out the latest featured and trending stories while you wait for your first TNS newsletter.

PREV
1 of 2
NEXT
VOXPOP
As a JavaScript developer, what non-React tools do you use most often?
Angular
0%
Astro
0%
Svelte
0%
Vue.js
0%
Other
0%
I only use React
0%
I don't use JavaScript
0%
Thanks for your opinion! Subscribe below to get the final results, published exclusively in our TNS Update newsletter:
NEW! Try Stackie AI
From clobbered drafts to real-time sync
Apr 14th 2026 10:00am, by David Moore
TypeScript 6.0 RC arrives as a bridge to a faster future
Mar 14th 2026 9:00am, by Darryl K. Taft
Mastra empowers web devs to build AI agents in TypeScript
Jan 28th 2026 11:00am, by Loraine Lawson
2019-12-30 03:00:02
ChubaoFS: The Cloud Native Computing Foundation's Speedy New Distributed File System
news,
Cloud Native Ecosystem / Storage

ChubaoFS: The Cloud Native Computing Foundation’s Speedy New Distributed File System

A look at ChubaoFS, the CNCF's new cloud native file system.
Dec 30th, 2019 3:00am by Joab Jackson
👁 Featued image for: ChubaoFS: The Cloud Native Computing Foundation’s Speedy New Distributed File System

Adding to its growing arsenal of cloud native open source tools, the Cloud Native Computing Foundation has brought the distributed file system, ChubaoFS, into its Sandbox-level entry point for early-stage projects.

Chinese online retailing giant JD.com contributed the file system to CNCF. The team behind the project contend that ChubaoFS is uniquely suited among distributed file systems to support cloud native workloads, thanks to its virtually unlimited scalability and a robust metadata subsystem spread across the working memory of multiple nodes.

“ChubaoFS offers an innovative new option for general-purpose distributed/shared storage infrastructure regardless of file size or file access pattern,” said ChubaoFS creator, JD Chief Architect and Technical Vice President Haifeng Liu, in a statement. Created internally in 2017, the file system supports JD.com’s Kubernetes-based container platform, running more than 160 applications and services. ChubaoFS has been deployed on thousands of nodes and its p99 latency can reach 5 milliseconds, according to engineers at the company.

Cloud Native and S3 Compatible

👁 Image

Click to embiggen.

Each ChubaoFS volume can be seen as a complete file system from the vantage point of one container, or multiple containers sharing data (ChubaoFS can serve both containerized and uncontainerized environments). Because ChubaoFS implements the POSIX file system semantics, it can be mounted by the Linux OS just like a local filesystem. Volume sizes can range from a few gigabytes to several terabytes. A ChubaoFS cluster can have hundreds of thousands of separate volumes, or file systems, where each volume can have Elastic Block-level storage space.

It also provides a Simple Storage Service (S3)-compatible object storage interface that can be programmed against.

ChubaoFS consists of a metadata subsystem, a data subsystem, and a resource manager. Offering both object and file storage, ChubaoFS offers strong replication consistency and is particularly well-optimized for quickly handling small files — another favorable trait for supporting cloud native workloads. ChubaoFS works well with Kubernetes as its underlying storage infrastructure in that it separates compute from storage. It has been integrated with container storage interface (CSI) and Helm.

ChubaoFS is one of a number of high-performance, highly-scalable distributed file systems that are earmarked for cloud native workloads. For those who want to comparison shop, the FAQ section of the ChubaoFS site offers some critiques of other choices: Ceph can be difficult to learn and hard to optimize. Both HDFS and MooseSF suffer from single-node based metadata bottlenecks. Like ChubaoFS, Facebook’s Haystack keeps he metadata in main memory for performance, though unlike Facebook’s, ChubaoFS stores in this memory the actual physical offsets, instead of logical indices, of the file contents. Also it doesn’t require garbage collection, as files are deleted in realtime according to user requests.

According to GitHub stats, the project has, as of the time of this post, 419 commits from 19 contributors. Currently, ChubaoFS can be run on X86_64 and AMD platforms.

JD.com uses a range of open source and CNCF technologies in its ops, including Kubernetes, Vitess, Prometheus, Helm, and Harbor.

TRENDING STORIES
Joab Jackson is a senior editor for The New Stack, covering cloud native computing and system operations. He has reported on IT infrastructure and development for over 30 years, including stints at IDG and Government Computer News. Before that, he...
Read more from Joab Jackson
SHARE THIS STORY
TRENDING STORIES
The Cloud Native Computing Foundation is a sponsor of The New Stack.
SHARE THIS STORY
TRENDING STORIES
TNS DAILY NEWSLETTER Receive a free roundup of the most recent TNS articles in your inbox each day.
The New Stack does not sell your information or share it with unaffiliated third parties. By continuing, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.