Library of Ceph and Gluster reference architectures - Simplicity on the other side of complexity

May 30, 2017Brent Compton2-minute read

The Storage Solution Architectures team at Red Hat develops reference architectures, performance and sizing guides, and test drives for Gluster- and Ceph-based solutions. We’re a group of architects who perform lab validation, tuning, and interoperability development for composable storage services with target workloads on optimized server and network configurations. We seek simplicity on the other side of complexity.

At the end of this blog entry is a full library of our current publications and test drives.

In our modern era, a top company asset is pivotability. Pivotability based on external market changes. Pivotability after unknowns become known. Pivotability after golden ideas become dark alleys. For most enterprises, pivotability requires a composable technology infrastructure for shifting resources to meet changing needs. Composable storage services, such as those provided by Ceph and Gluster, are part of many companies’ composable infrastructures.

Composable technology infrastructures are most frequently described by the following attributes:

Open source v. closed development.
On-demand architectures v. fixed architectures.
Commodity hardware v. proprietary appliances.
Cross-industry collaboration v. isolated single-vendor silos.

As noted in the following figure, a few companies with large staffs of in-house experts can create composable infrastructures from raw technologies. Their large investments in in-house expertise allows them to convert raw technologies into solutions with limited pre-integration by technology suppliers. AWS, Google, and Azure are all examples of DIY businesses. A larger number of other companies, also needing composable infrastructures, rely on technology suppliers and the community for solution pre-integration and guidance to reduce their in-house expertise costs. We’ll label them “Assisted DIY.” Finally, the majority of global enterprises lack the in-house expertise for deploying these composable infrastructures. They rely on public cloud providers and pre-packaged solutions for their infrastructure needs. We’ll call them “Pre-packaged.”

The reference architectures, performance and sizing guides, and test drives produced by our team are primarily focused on the “Assisted DIY” segment of companies. Additionally, we strive to make Gluster and Ceph composable storage services available to the “Pre-packaged” segment of companies by using what we learn to produce pre-packaged combinations of Red Hat software with partner hardware targeting specific workload use cases.

We enjoy our roles at Red Hat because of the many of you with whom we collaborate to produce value. We hope you find these guides useful.

Team-produced with partner collaboration: