Architecting Block and Object Geo-replication Solutions with Ceph

As the size and performance requirements of storage systems have increased, file system designers have looked to new architectures to facilitate system scalability. Ceph is a fully open source distributed object store, network block device, and file system designed for reliability, performance, and scalability from terabytes to exabytes. The Ceph architecture was initially designed to accommodate single data center deployments, where low latency links and synchronous replication were an easy fit for a strongly consistent data store. For many organizations, however, storage systems that span multiple data centers and geographies for disaster recovery or follow-the-sun purposes are an important requirement. This talk will give a brief overview of the Ceph architecture, and then focus on the design and implementation of asynchronous geo-replication and disaster recovery features for the RESTful object storage layer, the RBD block service, and Ceph's underlying distributed object store, RADOS. The fundamental requirements for a robust georeplication solution (like point in time consistency) and the differing requirements for each storage use-case and API and the implications for the asynchronous replication strategy will be discussed.

Learning Objectives

An overview of the Ceph architecture
Info on the design and implementation of asynchronous geo-replication and disaster recovery features for the RESTful object storage layer, the RBD block service, and Ceph's underlying distributed object store, RADOS.
The fundamental requirements for a robust geo-replication solution (like point in time consistency) and the differing requirements for each storage use-case and API and the implications for the asynchronous replication strategy