A method of organizing and storing files in a hierarchical structure of folders and directories, accessible over a network or in the cloud. Like a digital filing cabinet where documents are organized into labeled folders and drawers — cloud file systems let multiple servers access the same files simultaneously, just like coworkers sharing a network drive.
A media production team uses Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) to store video editing projects so that multiple editors can work on the same files simultaneously from different EC2 instances. Azure Files provides similar shared storage for Windows-based workloads with familiar SMB protocol access.
All are managed, shared network file systems for multiple compute instances. AWS EFS and GCP Filestore are commonly used for Linux/NFS workloads; Azure Files supports SMB (and NFS in some tiers/regions) and integrates well with Windows/AD; OCI File Storage provides NFS-based shared storage for OCI compute.