associated method for providing a system and method for federating a local file system into a distributed file system while preserving local access to the existing data in the local file system according to the present invention may be used system 205 includes a software programming code or computer program product that is typically embedded within or installed on the computer system 200 alternatively system 205 can be saved on a suitable storage medium such as a diskette a cd a hard drive or like devices system 205 converts a local file system 210 to a storage tank metadata server mds and an object storage server system 205 is federation layer installed in computer system 200 that establishes a detour between the local applications and the local file system that provides access to a distributed mechanism or a network for exemplary purposes only a storage tank system is used to illustrate the distributed mechanism or network in fig1 applications 15 communicate directly with the local file system 10 and the local file system 10 communicates directly with the storage space 20 after the installation of system 205 applications 215 communicate with the storage tank client 235 the storage tank client 235 communicates with the virtual servers 240 the virtual servers 240 communicate with the local file system 210 and the local file system communicates with a disk a 220 and a disk b 225 in a storage space 230 system 205 is comprised.