What is Ceph?
Ceph is a new, cutting-edge, software tool for implementing Storage systems with high capacity, flexibility and availability. Ceph provides block storage, object storage, and file system storage in a single platform. Ceph runs on commodity hardware - saving costs, providing flexibility - and it's in the Linux kernel, so it's easy to consume.
The system was the result of a research project. The company Inktank was created to further develop the system, and they have since developed it into a mature product which is attracting interest even among established players in the storage market.
Along with it's flexibility, some notable features of Ceph are:
- Its open source character
- The support of commodity hardware, both in the field of Storage nodes as well as in the network technology used
- Open interfaces for controlling the memory areas over
- Block devices
- The Ceph Filesystem
- S3 object store
- OpenStack
Ceph is in the Linux kernel; Ceph can be accessed natively via programming languages; Ceph can be accessed via the Swift and S3 APIs; Ceph is integrated with the OpenStack cloud operating system; and Ceph is integrated with the Apache CloudStack project.
Key to Ceph's design is the autonomous, self-healing, and intelligent Ceph OSD Daemon. One of the key approaches of Ceph is understanding that the failure of any single component is going to happen. So Ceph has no single point of failure. This means configuration changes, new requirements, even a failure, will not interrupt the normal operation of a running system.
Due to its flexibility and scalability Ceph also provides the possibility to keep up with future trends (such as new energy-efficient ARM-based technologies for data centers), and integrate into existing storage systems.
How we can help you
You are currently using a proprietary solution for your storage systems that could cause problems in the future and might not be able to respond adequately to changing requirements.
You don't want to invest in yet another follow-up proprietary solution.
We will help you assess whether a technology like Ceph is the future-proof answer to your requirements.
The service that we can provide
We've been working with Ceph since the end of 2011.
During this time we have integrated Ceph with different hardware platforms and in different Linux systems.
We've taken measurements ran analyses of Ceph in different environments, and we are able to detect bottlenecks and resolve them.
We are engaged at every level, from the network infrastructure and the hardware, to the operating system configuration and problem-oriented adaptation of Ceph itself.
Solutions
We have the experience of many years in the field of storage systems, and that will allow us to find the right solution for your needs even if Ceph is not the right answer.