---
index: 16
title: 'Distributed File Systems'
presentors:
  - 'Alex Tsay'
thumbnails:
  small: 'http://mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/csclub/alex_tsay_aerofs-thumb-small.jpg'
links:
  - file: 'http://mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/csclub/alex_tsay_aerofs.mp4'
    type: 'Talk (x264)'
---

Alex Tsay from AeroFS will talk about the high availability distributed file systems they develop. The CAP Theorem outlined the fundamental limitations of a distributed system. When designing a distributed system, one has to constantly be aware of the trade-off between consistency and availability. Most distributed systems are designed with consistency in mind. However, AeroFS has decided to build a high-availability file system instead. In this tech talk, I'll be presenting an overview of AeroFS file system, advantages and challenges of a high-availability file system, and examine the inner workings of AeroFS's core syncing algorithm.