Hi Eric, I was aware of the "copy-on-write" features in ZFS, but was not aware of how the snapshots work, since I never got to try it out. This definitely answers my question and provides a viable solution when ZFS becomes available. As for ZFS and zones, I see a lot of potential for easy cloning of zones. Will ZFS support clustering? Are there any plans to make it a distributed file system (like cluster vxvm?) ?
Octave --- Eric Schrock <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Sat, Sep 10, 2005 at 10:34:29AM -0700, Octave Orgeron wrote: > > > > Does the snapshot take a full copy of the filesystem or does it > only > > copy the delta changes? If it's just regular snapshot, it does not > meet > > the features a union fs can provide. I've only used ZFS in a > Solaris 10 > > course, but it was a year old version:( So I'm not too familiar > with > > what has happened over the past year in development. > > > > ZFS is a copy on write filesystem (similar to WAFL), so a snapshot is > an > instantaneous operation that initially consumes zero additional > space. > As the active data diverges from the snapshot, it will gradually take > up > more space, proportional to the amount of delta between them. In > addition, ZFS supports the notion of a "clone", which is a writable > filesystem whose initial contents are that of a snapshot. Like > snapshots, a clone initially takes up no extra space, but will > consume > more over time as the data diverges. > > We are actively thinking about how these technologies can be used > with > Zones and Live Upgrade (among other cases) to enable rapid deployment > and upgrade. The idea of creating a "template zone" on a ZFS > filesystem > and then being able to instantaneously clone a new zone into > existance > is certainly appealing. But we're currently focused on ZFS > integration; > this is clearly a "phase two" item. > > - Eric > > -- > Eric Schrock, Solaris Kernel Development > http://blogs.sun.com/eschrock > *********************************** * Octave J. Orgeron * * Solaris Infrastructure Architect* * http://unixconsole.blogspot.com * * [EMAIL PROTECTED] * *********************************** ______________________________________________________ Yahoo! for Good Donate to the Hurricane Katrina relief effort. http://store.yahoo.com/redcross-donate3/ _______________________________________________ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
