NameNodes

NameNodes maintain the namespace tree for HDFS and a mapping of file blocks to DataNodes where the data is stored.

A simple HDFS cluster can have only one primary NameNode, supported by a secondary NameNode that periodically compresses the NameNode edits log file that contains a list of HDFS metadata modifications. This reduces the amount of disk space consumed by the log file on the NameNode, which also reduces the restart time for the primary NameNode. A high-availability cluster contains two NameNodes: active and standby.