A method includes receiving, by a data processing apparatus, a plurality of file operation requests, each file operation request including a priority, a deadline, and an operation type and representing a request to perform an operation on at least one file maintained in a distributed file system; identifying, by the data processing apparatus, a group of file operation requests to be executed together from the plurality of file operation requests, the identification based at least in part on at least one of: the file operations in the group of file operations being directed to a same storage system, or file operations in the group of file operations sharing a common operation type; and sending a request to execute the group of file operation requests to a system configured to perform the group of file operation requests.