Moving the ball forward for object storage with Red Hat Ceph Storage 2.2

We are happy to announce that Red Hat Ceph Storage 2.2 is now Generally Available (GA). It is based on the open source community version of Ceph Storage, specifically version 10.2.5, the Jewel release stream. Similar to Red Hat Ceph Storage 2 announced last summer, Red Hat Ceph Storage 2.2 has a heavy focus on object storage deployments. In addition to following a new, more predictable release process, Red Hat Ceph Storage 2.2 offers a number of enhancements, including:

Global clusters

The object access method for Red Hat Ceph Storage (aka the RADOS Gateway, or “RGW”) now supports up to three sites for global cluster configurations. This means that customers can deploy an active-active global cluster across three geographically distributed sites with data replication and consistency across all three. Alternatively, the RGW multi-site capability can be used in disaster recovery configurations for data protection against site disaster using an active-passive deployment.

Better security and encryption support

Red Hat Ceph Storage now has native support for the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) in RGW. This is a good option for small to medium size installations that require data encryption between the object storage client and RGW. Because SSL and encryption can have a performance impact, we still recommend terminating SSL at the load balancer or HA layer for large-scale installations.

S3 API enhancements

Red Hat Ceph Storage supports the S3 object API for easy application mobility across private and public clouds. Red Hat Ceph Storage 2.2 now adds support for the new multipart upload copy-part S3 API.

Swift enhancements

Red Hat Ceph Storage 2.2 also has important developments for customers using the Swift object API that demonstrate our continued focus on object storage deployments, including:

• Support for Swift object versioning functionality.
• Full testing and compliance of Red Hat Ceph Storage 2.2 object storage with the Swift API tests in the Tempest test suite from RefStack toolset for OpenStack. For customers, this translates into interoperability between applications and services using the Swift API and Red Hat Ceph Storage.

For a recent example of a customer success with Red Hat Ceph Storage at scale for object storage, check out our recently published success story with the CLIMB project in the U.K.

For general information on object storage features in Red Hat Ceph Storage, read this blog.