Riak creates vnodes, or virtual nodes for each node. These vnodes make up what's called a ring server. So you may have 1024 vnodes in say, 4 bare-metal nodes.

Riak creates vnodes, or virtual nodes for each node. These vnodes make up what's called a ring server. So you may have 1024 vnodes in say, 4 bare-metal nodes. I pointed this presentation out below, but I'll point it out again, because it's a really good presentation to understand riak: http://riak.basho.com/nyc-nosql/ http://riak.basho.com/nyc-nosql/