Apparatus, systems, and methods may operate to receive a request to access a file from a client node at one of a plurality of lookup nodes, the lookup nodes storing portions of a distributed table having lookup information associated with the file. The distributed table, which may comprise a distributed hash table, includes replicated references to virtualized and non-virtualized file elements of varied granularity in a unified file system. Additional activity may comprise forwarding the request to another one of the lookup nodes until the lookup information is located, or chaining the request to one of the plurality of lookup nodes and implementing activity that has been requested. Additional apparatus, systems, and methods are disclosed.