Ceph is an open source, distributed data storage platform created for highly scalable unified storage. Ceph is a software defined system that is capable of supporting block, file, and object storage, while running on commodity hardware. There is a supported version of Ceph called Red Hat Ceph Storage 5 in addition to the open source version. This version of Ceph as been transitioned to IBM and is supported by IBM.
Ceph supports S3 and Swift REST-based APIs for object storage along with NFS for files and iSCSI via a gateway for block access to form a unified storage system.
A Ceph storage cluster is based upon RADOS, which stands for Reliable Autonomic Distributed Object Store. Ceph storage clusters are made up of Ceph Monitors and Ceph OSD Daemons. Ceph Monitors are used to keep a copy of the cluster map, while Ceph OSD Deamons are used to check the status of OSDs (Object Storage Devices), and return this status back to the monitors.
Running on top of the RADOS layer is LIBRADOS which consists of libraries capable of interacting with the objects in RADOS. LIBRADOS enables the use of RADOS gateway for object data, RBD (RADOS Block Device) for block support, and CephFS file system for file support.
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