Because realms share the same cryptographic key, nodes participating in realms trust each other. This ensures that a set of defined Nodes uses the same policies for authorization, authentication, metadata handling and data replication. By default access relevant information is shared with every other node in a realm. Data and metadata can be replicated by default to nodes inside a realm, while manual replication is still possibly with other nodes from other realms, but without the guarantee to use the same access restrictions. This flexible approach guarantees a resilient data storage system, where data and metadata can be dynamically transferred. Policies can for example, define how access should be managed, how data should be replicated, which metadata standards need to be enforced or which fields need to be set on metadata, so that consistent metadata handling is ensured in a realm. Users that are registered in a realm can interact with other realms via the identity provider used by their home-realm, supporting interoperability between nodes and realms.