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    Ceph logo

    Ceph

    Open-source distributed storage platform.

    DEGermany·Founded 2007
    Headquarters
    🇩🇪Germany
    Data Hosting
    EU (any EU region)
    Structure
    Independent
    Compliance
    ▣GDPR▦EU Data

    Ceph key facts

    Last updated
    Legal entity
    The Linux Foundation (Ceph Foundation)
    Headquarters
    Germany (DE)
    Ownership
    Part of The Linux Foundation
    Founded
    2007
    Data hosting
    EU (any EU region)
    Infrastructure
    User-defined (Software-only)
    Deployment
    Self-hosted
    Open source
    Yes
    US Cloud Act exposure
    Exposed
    Replaces
    Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage, Azure Blob Storage, NetApp, Dell EMC Isilon (PowerScale), IBM Spectrum Scale, Pure Storage

    About Ceph

    Ceph is a massively scalable, open-source distributed storage system designed to provide excellent performance, reliability, and scalability. It provides a unified storage interface for object-level, block-level, and file-level storage, allowing users to consolidate their storage needs into a single cluster. Unlike traditional storage solutions that rely on centralized metadata servers, Ceph uses the CRUSH algorithm to empower clients to calculate the location of data, eliminating scaling bottlenecks and single points of failure. Governance of the project is managed by the Ceph Foundation, which operates under the umbrella of the Linux Foundation. While the technology was originally developed by Sage Weil at UC Santa Cruz and later supported by companies like Inktank and Red Hat, it remains a vendor-neutral community project. Ceph is a cornerstone of modern cloud infrastructure, frequently paired with platforms like OpenStack and Proxmox to provide hyperconverged or standalone storage backends for enterprise-grade environments.

    Alternative to

    Amazon S3Google Cloud StorageAzure Blob StorageNetAppDell EMC Isilon (PowerScale)IBM Spectrum ScalePure Storage

    Target Segments

    EnterprisePublic SectorSMBEducation

    Deployment Options

    Self-hosted

    Hosting & Security

    Infrastructure

    User-defined (Software-only)

    Key Features

    Object Storage (RADOS) supporting S3 and Swift APIs
    Block Storage (RBD) for virtual machine disks
    File System (CephFS) POSIX-compliant distributed file system
    Self-healing and self-managing architecture using CRUSH algorithm
    Thin provisioning and snapshots
    Tiered storage and erasure coding
    Automated rebalancing and data scrubbing
    No single point of failure design

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