[jjobi]

There are many problems a storage driver for docker need to solve. We are not replacing docker here, just providing a better solution for the storage driver (API of which is defined by docker) part of it. Solutions in use today are half baked and have too many problems to deal with.

Docker is already doing a good job of de-duplication by identifying shared data between applications and keeping a unique copy of shared data on disk. But many of the existing storage drivers today, would create multiple copies of such shared data in memory when many applications (containers) consume such shared data. Applications are running on top of file systems and each need a separate instance of the file system and Linux kernel does not know if all those file systems are sharing same data underneath. Each application also require a unique view of the file system and they may choose to modify their file system (thus their shadow copy of shared data) and such changes should be hidden from other applications (containers). That is where cloning technologies come into play. And there are many other things a docker storage driver need to solve. Rather than focusing on one aspect of the whole problem, it would be better to look at the whole picture and see if there are any solutions out there solving all those problems correctly and efficiently for a docker storage driver.