what is vfiler?

[netappmagic]

I have a silly question, if you dont mind. I have experiences on FAS series, but not on vfiler. What is vfiler, is v3100 as shown in the following one of types of vfiler? if not, could anybody please forward me the link about vfiler from bottom and up? Thanks!

http://www.netapp.com/us/products/storage-systems/v3100/

[scottgelb]

FAS is a controller for NetApp disks only, and V-Series is a controller for both 3rd Party Vendor Disks and NetApp Disks (support matrix for 3rd party vendors and switches).  There are both FAS and V series equivalents for mid-range and high-end models (FAS3270/V3270 FAS6240/V6240 for example).

vFilers are ONTAP 7-mode virtual containers that create separate virtual filer instances withing a physical controller (doesn't matter if FAS or V-Series).

[rorzmcgauze]

Just to confuse matters you can end up with vfilers when you add a multistore license to your system which allows you to partition up your controller. In Clustered ONTAP (COT) you can achieve roughly the same thing using vservers.

For more on multistore

https://library.netapp.com/ecm/ecm_get_file/ECMP1136336