Ceph is an open source, distributed, scaled-out, software-defined storage system that can provide block, object, and file storage. Through the use of the Controlled Replication Under Scalable Hashing (CRUSH) algorithm, Ceph eliminates the need for centralized metadata and can distribute the load across all the nodes in the cluster. Since CRUSH is an algorithm, data placement is calculated rather than based on table lookups, and can scale to hundreds of petabytes without the risk of bottlenecks and the associated single points of failure. Clients also form direct connections with the required OSDs, which also eliminates any single points becoming bottlenecks.
Ceph provides three main types of storage: block storage via the RADOS Block Device (RBD), file storage via CephFS, and object storage via RADOS Gateway, which provides S3 and Swift-compatible storage.
Ceph is...