A storage management computing device obtains an information lifecycle management (ILM) policy based on a query from a storage node ingesting an object into a distributed storage system. A hierarchical data protection plan comprising protection schemes at different layers of the distributed storage system is determined. A data protection scheme to be applied at a storage node computing device level is determined and a plurality of storage node computing devices are identified based on the hierarchical data protection plan. The storage management computing device instructs the ingesting storage node to store the object into the distributed storage system according to the hierarchical data protection plan.