Object versioning support for a file system

A non-transitory machine readable medium storing instructions, which when executed by one or more processing resources of a storage system, cause a file system of the storage system to:

• maintain information regarding a plurality of objects within a hierarchical data structure, in which subsets of objects of a plurality of objects associated with an object storage bucket are grouped into respective chapter databases of a plurality of chapter databases in which each of the respective chapter databases corresponds to a contiguous range of a namespace for object names of the plurality of objects;
• track within the hierarchical data structure a plurality of versions of a first set of objects of the plurality of objects that are associated with a first chapter database of the plurality of chapter databases;
• and
• facilitate efficient enumeration of the first set of objects by, for each object of the first set of objects, storing information regarding a current version of the plurality of versions of the object within a corresponding single object record of the first chapter database and interposing a level of indirection between the first chapter database and information regarding one or more prior versions of the plurality of versions of the object.

A storage system comprising:

• one or more processing resources;
• and
• instructions that when executed by the one or more processing resource cause a file system of the storage system to:
• maintain information regarding a plurality of objects within a tree data structure, in which subsets of objects of a plurality of objects associated with an object storage bucket are grouped into respective chapter databases of a plurality of chapter databases in which each of the respective chapter databases corresponds to a contiguous range of a namespace for object names of the plurality of objects;
• track within the tree data structure a plurality of versions of a first set of objects of the plurality of objects that are associated with a first chapter database of the plurality of chapter databases;
• and
• facilitate efficient enumeration of the first set of objects by, for each object of the first set of objects, storing information regarding a current version of the plurality of versions of the object within a corresponding single object record of the first chapter database and interposing a level of indirection between the first chapter database and information regarding one or more prior versions of the plurality of versions of the object.