The OpenSolaris CIFS project is a good one to watch for the next few weeks. Once done, it will allow filesharing between Windows and OpenSolaris systems. Unlike Samba, this project provides an in-kernel implementation.
It will be fun to watch when a OpenSolaris system “pretends” 🙂 to be a Windows file sharing server on the network.
I am also curious to know more about the way the OpenSolaris file systems support Windows file access semantics. Especially on a ZFS filesystem. Now, let us consider a scenario where a huge file is hosted on a ZFS file server (i.e. on a OpenSolaris system) versus on a Windows file server. When that file is accessed from a Windows client, which server will provide faster response? If a (CIFS enabled) ZFS fileserver is faster, then we will have more uses for a ZFS fileserver in intranets. Let us wait and see.