4. The method of claim 1 wherein the files reside on a plurality of local file systems connected by a network, said method comprising the additional step of: copying the files from the local-file systems into the distributed file system.
1. A computer implemented method for executing an ANSI SQL expression belonging to the SELECT-WHERE-equi-JOIN class on data residing in a distributed file system, said method comprising the steps of: entering the ANSI SQL expression into a user interface; converting the ANSI SQL expression into a map-reduce program; running the map-reduce program on the distributed file system; storing the result set of the program in the distributed file system; and presenting the result set through a user interface.