Ceph: Open Source Storage Platform
Ceph is an open source software storage platform providing object, block, and file storage in a unified system for scalable and reliable operation on commodity hardware.
What is Ceph?
Ceph is an open source, software-defined storage platform designed for scalability, reliability, and cost-effectiveness. Here are some key things to know about Ceph:
- Provides block, object, and file storage in one unified system - Ceph supports traditional block device storage as well as object storage and scale-out file storage, allowing one system to replace several specialized storage systems.
- Scalable to exabyte levels - Designed to scale linearly to thousands of nodes and exabyte storage capacities while maintaining consistent high performance.
- Self-managing and self-healing - Ceph monitors itself and uses algorithms like CRUSH to ensure data is properly distributed, replicated, and recovered automatically when hardware fails.
- Open source with a large developer community - Ceph is open source, licensed under LGPL 2.1, and has an active developer community adding new capabilities all the time.
- Runs on commodity hardware - Ceph is designed for deployment on economical commodity hardware like x86 servers with local disks, keeping costs lower.
With its versatility, scalability, resilience and low cost, Ceph offers a unified storage platform for private and public cloud infrastructure providers needing petabyte to exabyte scale cost-effective storage.