1. A method of providing access to a virtual machine-accessible storage container (VMASC) on a data storage system over a file-based network storage protocol, the method comprising: exporting, by the data storage system, a mount point for a lightweight filesystem accessible using the file-based network storage protocol to a virtual machine storage manager (VMSM) executing on a remote computing system, the VMSM operating in conjunction with at least one virtual machine (VM) instance, the lightweight filesystem providing a limited set of file-based operation features, the limited set of file-based operation features being smaller than a set of file-based operation features provided by the file-based network storage protocol; placing a link to the VMASC as a file entry within the lightweight file system, the VMASC residing on a block-based storage device of the data storage system, the file entry representing the VMASC as a file; receiving, at the data storage system, from the VMSM operating on the remote computing system, via the file-based network storage protocol, a file-based command directed at the file represented by the file entry within the lightweight filesystem, the file-based command including a command to access a particular address within the file; and in response to receiving the file-based command, accessing a particular block within the VMASC mapped to by the particular address within the file.