The Unified Storage Device (USD) serves data either as blocks in a SAN setting, or as files in a NAS setting. A prominent feature of USD is that when it exports a LUN, the LUN behaves as another file in the file system. This means that LUNs can take advantage of NetApp technology of Snapshot copies, SnapMirror, SnapRestore (Single-File SnapRestore for LUNs), and so on.
Additionally, a LUN could be turned into a file accessible by NFS, or CIFS, and vice versa. This has been demonstrated by using Oracle in raw mode and then remounting the LUN through NFS. This capability helps simplify the production of golden boot images as well.
Using FlexClone functionality, multiple clients can boot off a base file system image by each mounting a separate Snapshot copy of the base file system LUN. The configuration files used by each client, in such a case, varies from one Snapshot copy to another.
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