NetApp's Flexclone® Technology for the FAS2240A Filer

Starting with Data ONTAP™ 7G, filer administrators have access to a powerful new feature that allows them to instantly create clones of a flexible volume (FlexVol volume). A FlexClone volume is a writable point-in-time image of a FlexVol™ volume or another FlexClone volume. FlexClone volumes add a new level of agility and efficiency to storage operations. They take only a few seconds to create and are created without interrupting access to the parent FlexVol volume. FlexClone volumes use space very efficiently, leveraging the Data ONTAP architecture to store only data that changes between the parent and clone. This is a huge potential saving in dollars, space, and energy. In addition to all these benefits, clone volumes have the same high performance as other kinds of volumes.