Provides access to a distributed, observable filesystem-like node tree for configuration data.
Nodes in the tree are organized in a directory structure: each tree-node (not to be confused with cluster nodes, or machines) may have sub-nodes (children) as well as byte data associated with it (the node's contents). The nodes are named in the following manner: the root of the tree is called "/", and generations are separated by the '/' (forward-slash) character. A node may have the simple name "mynode" and its full path may be "/grandparent/parent/mynode". All full paths must begin with a "/".
The tree is available to all nodes (machines) in the cluster, and any change is immediately visible to all of them. The tree provides an important ordering guarantee: All children (of a certain node) appear (throughout the cluster) in the order in which they've been created.
The tree also provides
ephemeral nodes: those are automatically deleted when the creating cluster-node (machine) goes offline, i.e. disconnected from the cluster for whatever reason - intentional or due to some fault.