US Patent 10303499 Application aware graph driver

Techniques and mechanisms described herein provide for a custom file system in a containerized application system in which an application instance may be created as a container based on an application image, which itself may be composed of some number of application image layers. By being aware of these application image layers, the graph driver can perform image layer level operations such as selectively updating image layers, storing image layers in a way that reflects class of service objectives, and responding to application level queries.