illumos gate

Hi there,

I originally asked this question in the OpenSolaris forum: http://opensolaris.org/jive/thread.jspa?threadID=138873, and was the suggested to post a feature request here.

The idea is to enable ZFS with a similar functionality of NetApp WAFL FlexClone feature where one can quickly copy a file on the same file system using the deduplication technology. This is very attractive for virtualization since I can copy a 100GB image file in a second. It has a advantage of
1. fast provisioning
2. save disk space
3. No explicit dependency on source like the vmdk or qcow2 snapshots, which are based on particular file formats.

My feeling is that this feature can gain huge traction in cloud computing.

I am not a ZFS file system developer but I am more than happy to participate its development if this becomes on the ZFS roadmap, providing my end user experience with NetApp and other expertise.

Thank you.
Shi