What is Ceph? | Ubuntu

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Ceph is an open source software-defined storage solution designed to address the block, file and object storage needs of modern enterprises. Its highly scalable architecture sees it being adopted as the new norm for high-growth block storage, object stores, and data lakes. Ceph provides reliable and scalable storage while keeping CAPEX and OPEX costs in line with underlying commodity hardware prices.
Ceph makes it possible to decouple data from physical storage hardware using software abstraction layers, which provides unparalleled scaling and fault management capabilities. This makes Ceph ideal for cloud, Openstack, Kubernetes, and other microservice and container-based workloads, as it can effectively address large data volume storage needs.
The main advantage of Ceph is that it provides interfaces for multiple storage types within a single cluster, eliminating the need for multiple storage solutions or any specialised hardware, thus reducing management overheads. Use cases for Ceph range from private cloud infrastructure (both hyper-converged and disaggregated) to big data analytics and rich media, or as an alternative to public cloud storage.
Ceph stores data as objects within logical storage pools. A Ceph cluster can have multiple pools, each tuned to different performance or capacity use cases. In order to efficiently scale and handle rebalancing and recovery, Ceph shards the pools into placement groups (PGs). The CRUSH algorithm defines the placement group for storing an object and thereafter calculates which Ceph OSDs should store the placement group.
There are multiple users of Ceph across a broad range of industries, from academia to telecommunications and cloud service providers. Ceph is particularly favored for its flexibility, scalability, and robustness.
Ceph was initially created by Sage Weil as part of his doctoral dissertation at the University of California, Santa Cruz and evolved from a file system prototype to a fully functional open source storage platform.
Ubuntu was an early supporter of Ceph and its community. That support continues today as Canonical maintains premier member status and serves on the governing board of the Ceph Foundation.
Multiple companies contribute to Ceph, with many more playing a part in the broader community.
Influential contributors to Ceph
How Yahoo! Japan built their IaaS storage using Ceph on Ubuntu
Genomic research centre turns to Ceph for growing storage needs
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