Method and system are provided for writing output from map-reduce jobs to an archive file. The method may include providing an archive manager and exposing an interface to be called from map-reduce jobs to output to an archive file in a map-reduce distributed file system. The method may also include using a buffering database as a temporary cache to buffer updates to the archive file. Handling by the archive manager calls from map-reduce jobs may allow: reading directly from an archive file or from a job index at the buffering database; writing to a job index at the buffering database used as a temporary cache to buffer updates; and serializing updates from the buffering database to the archive file.