Patent ID: 7631155
Filing Date: 2009-12-08
Classification: G06F,Y10S

Abstract:
1. A file server comprising: data storage containing data of a production file system or a logical unit number (LUN) of storage; and at least one data processor coupled to the data storage for accessing the data storage; wherein the production file system or LUN is contained in a file of a container file system in the data storage, the container file system having a logical extent of storage provided by a logical extent of a sparse metavolume of the data storage, the logical extent of the sparse metavolume including slices of logical storage, at least one of the slices of logical storage being provisioned with a configured slice of the data storage containing data of the production file system or LUN; wherein said at least one data processor is programmed for maintaining a slice map, the slice map indicating whether or not each slice of logical storage in the sparse metavolume is provisioned with an associated configured slice of the data storage; and said at least one data processor is programmed for responding to requests from at least one client for writing data to and reading data from the production file system or LUN by accessing the slice map for determining a configured slice of the data storage to be written to and read from, and by writing to and reading from the configured slice of the data storage to be written to and read from.