Network File System (NFS) is a distributed file system protocol that allows users to access files over a network as if they were on a local disk. NFS was originally developed by Sun Microsystems in 1984 and is now maintained by the IETF. NFS uses RPC calls to issue requests from clients to servers and maintains a stateless design to simplify crash recovery. While easy to set up and administer, NFS has limitations regarding performance, scalability, security and file locking.