Reliable enterprise-scale distributed storage system.
Ceph is a modern distributed storage platform engineered for scalability, fault tolerance, and high availability. Widely used in corporate data centers and research institutions, Ceph delivers strong reliability, scalability, and hardware independence. The system supports object, block, and file storage, making it a versatile solution for a broad range of tasks: from virtualization and container platforms to cloud storage and large-scale archival.
Ceph's architecture follows a fully distributed data-management model. Instead of relying on traditional RAID controllers or dedicated NAS appliances, Ceph aggregates physical servers, disks, and logical resources into a unified cluster system.
A principal technical advantage of Ceph is automatic data recovery when individual disks or nodes fail. The system uses the CRUSH algorithm (Controlled Replication Under Scalable Hashing) to determine data placement without a centralized placement table. This enables high performance and scalability while avoiding single points of contention.
Ceph does not require special proprietary hardware and can be deployed on standard servers, significantly reducing costs. Support for SSD and NVMe devices makes Ceph suitable for performance-sensitive workloads. The platform balances load evenly across nodes, and automatic data rebalancing after cluster changes minimizes manual intervention.
Physical servers in a Ceph cluster may be purpose-built or general-purpose, depending on specific requirements. In minimal configurations, a server can perform one or multiple roles, including storage, cluster management, and client-serving duties. The most common server type in a Ceph cluster is an OSD node equipped with many disks and running OSD daemons that manage individual disks or logical volumes.
A defining characteristic of Ceph is that a server’s role is determined more by its cluster configuration and deployed services than by raw hardware specs. This allows identical nodes to assume different logical roles, simplifying scaling and maintenance.
Ceph comprises several core subsystems, each responsible for specific functionality. At the foundation lies RADOS (Reliable Autonomic Distributed Object Store) — the distributed object store that provides replication and self-healing. On top of RADOS, three primary interfaces are exposed: RBD (RADOS Block Device) — block storage for virtual machines and applications, CephFS — POSIX-compatible file system for shared file access, RGW (RADOS Gateway) — object storage gateway providing S3/Swift-compatible API access.
Cluster management and operational tooling are provided by several control components. Ceph Monitor (MON) tracks cluster health and maintains the cluster map. Ceph Manager (MGR) offers monitoring and management interfaces, including metrics export, a REST API, and a dashboard for operational insight.
For general questions concerning new client relations, as well as technical questions on administration and web development, please contact us at info@ntchs.com.
