1. A distributed file system comprising: a plurality of input/output (I/O) nodes; a plurality of compute nodes communicably coupled to the plurality of I/O nodes through an interconnect, each including: applications to perform specific functions and perform I/O functions through libraries; and file system call handlers capable of providing application programming interfaces (APIs) to facilitate communication between the plurality of I/O nodes and the applications, wherein the file system call handlers use a message port system to communicate with other compute nodes.