NFS

Network File System (NFS) is a network file system protocol originally developed by Sun Microsystems in 1984, allowing a user on a client computer to access files over a network in a manner similar to how local storage is accessed.

The Network File System is an open standard defined in RFCs, allowing anyone to implement the protocol.

NFS V1-4

NFSv4

Version 4 (RFC 3010, December 2000; revised in RFC 3530, April 2003), influenced by AFS and CIFS, includes performance improvements, mandates strong security, and introduces a stateful protocol.[3] Version 4 became the first version developed with the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) after Sun Microsystems handed over the development of the NFS protocols.

NFS version 4 minor version 1 (NFSv4.1) has been approved by the IESG and received an RFC number since Jan 2010.[4] The NFSv4.1 specification aims:

To provide protocol support to take advantage of clustered server deployments including the ability to provide scalable parallel access to files distributed among multiple servers (pNFS extension).