Patent attributes
A version control interface for data provides a layer of abstraction that permits multiple readers and writers to access data lakes concurrently. An overlay file system, based on a data structure such as a tree, is used on top of one or more underlying storage instances to implement the interface. Each tree node tree is identified and accessed by means of any universally unique identifiers. Copy-on-write with the tree data structure implements snapshots of the overlay file system. The snapshots support a long-lived master branch, with point-in-time snapshots of its history, and one or more short-lived private branches. As data objects are written to the data lake, the private branch corresponding to a writer is updated. The private branches are merged back into the master branch using any merging logic, and conflict resolution policies are implemented. Readers read from the updated master branch or from any of the private branches.
