In an example embodiment, a distributed storage system includes a service tier including a service node to receive a request for a logical object comprising binary data and metadata describing the binary data, and a storage tier including a plurality of storage nodes, wherein one or more of the storage nodes is to store the metadata describing the binary data. The distributed storage system also includes a coordination tier to store mapping information identifying the one or more of the storage nodes storing the metadata. The service node is also to receive the mapping information from the coordination tier, to access the metadata describing the binary data from one of the one or more of the storage nodes based on the mapping information, and to return the metadata describing the binary data in a response to the request.