This are the original slides from Michael Kienle´s presentation at OpenStack Summit in Vanouver, dated May 20th 2015 regarding Closing the storage gap - how to administrate Ceph storage resources without deep-diving into the technical details

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Closing the storage gap
How to administrate Ceph storage resources
without deep-diving into the technical details
Michael Kienle, CEO
it-novum GmbH
michael.kienle@it-novum.com
Phone: +49 (661) 103-333
Germany: Edelzeller Str. 44 in 36043 Fulda
Siemensdamm 50 in 13629 Berlin
Austria: Am Europlatz 2 in 1120 Vienna

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Agenda
…it is not an OpenStack deep-dive (pls. look at other tracks)
…it is not about OpenStack Storage in general (pls. have a look at the
OpenStack Paris video on how to build open source storage with
support for OpenStack Cinder / block storage)
…it is about how to use a modular and extensible open source
framework to face current challenges
What are the challenges of SDS – SoftwareDefinedStorage?
Is Ceph the answer?
How to tackle it without the command line…

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Datacenter “100%” open source
Monitoring
Infrastructure Configuration Management
Configuration
Management
System
(CMS)
Software-
Defined
Networking
Virtualization
Service Transition Service OperationService Design
Event Correlation
User
OtherMonitors
Capacity
Management
Risk
Management
Cloud
Self Service
System
Application
End-2-End
Process
Change
Management
Problem
Management
SAP
ApplicationsService Desk
Network Operation
Center
Release
Management
Cloud Management
Incident
Management
Software-
Defined
Storage
Discovery
ReportingServiceLevelManagement
CMDB
Application Mgmt.Security

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Datacenter “100%” open source
Monitoring
Infrastructure Configuration Management
Configuration
Management
System
(CMS)
Software-
Defined
Networking
Virtualization
Service Transition Service OperationService Design
Event Correlation
User
OtherMonitors
Capacity
Management
Risk
Management
Cloud
Self Service
System
Application
End-2-End
Process
Change
Management
Problem
Management
SAP
ApplicationsService Desk
Network Operation
Center
Release
Management
Cloud Management
Incident
Management
Software-
Defined
Storage
Discovery
ReportingServiceLevelManagement
CMDB
Application Mgmt.Security
OpenStack
OpenStack
Software-Defined Storage (SDS) based on Open Source for
building a unified storage system on vanilla hardware
Today: configuring and administrating Ceph for OpenStack

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The challenges of Storage for OpenStack
Data growth needs to be managed automatically and way cheaper (and even with
OpenStack there is a lot of work to do….)
 Huge cost savings by using commodity hardware and Open Source software the
SDS-way…
Reducing vendor lock-in through open standards
 The incumbent players are perfect in securing their huge margins by bundling
Standardization enables automation & abstraction of software from hardware
 Open Source gained strength through open APIs and commodity hardware, for the
whole stack incl. Storage

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The challenges of SDS
What do you need?
Open standards
High scalability
High reliability
No vendor lock-in
Lower costs
Easy to manage
Performance & functions
Integration with OpenStack
What you may get!
An own developed Open
Source tool stack
High scalability and
reliability…if your stack works
Lower investments but higher
operational efforts
Lock-in into the own stack,
without external support

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There are many options. Ceph is one of the
renowned – it can be all you need! Nearly :)
Ceph provides object
AND block storage in a
single system that is
compatible with the
Swift and Cinder APIs
and is self-healing without
operator intervention.

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What does nearly mean?
Ceph is extremely complex because of too many configuration switches,
interdependencies and command-line options
Ceph might have performance issues in some huge landscapes
Ok for pure OpenStack usage but no native support for UnifiedStorage
e.g. iSCSI, FC, FCoE, ZFS, XFS, BTFRS, EXT4, etc.
Consistent snapshots on application level are not available (legacy
applications still depend on it)
No guided (template & wizard based) use case based setup for a well-
matched configuration
“Real” management GUI is missing, Calamari is “view only” 

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Calamari
Colorful, but view only
No management GUI, just monitoring
Scale up to 64 nodes only
Complicated deployment and installation

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Conclusion
Ceph (and Calamari) will not solve all problems
What about Unified Storage (FC, iSCSI, CIFS, NFS) needs?
Needed versatility in data center environments (if you not only using
OpenStack)
Intuitive and scalable management GUI
Consistent snapshots on application level
New problems come in addition
Complexity
Appropriate commodity hardware configuration
Performance in some huge landscapes
Now what?

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ITSM
i-doit & OTRS
Umbrella Monitoring
openITCOCKPIT
Cloud Management
OpenStack Cinder
Reporting
Pentaho
Billing, Backup,...
SAP, SEP sesam
Configuration
Deployment
Services & Tools
OPENAPI
Web
CLI
Apps
Status
Checking
Application
Management
Access
Samba, NFS, CIFS,
iSCSI, FC, FCoE
Availability
Ceph,
DRBD, Pacemaker, Corosync
Efficiency
Ceph
ZFS, LVM, BTFRS, XFS
Backup
Snapshotting, Tape-Backup, ...
Analyzing
openITCOCKPIT, Nagios, ...
Backend
Core
Frontend
Interfaces
Use a modular, Open Source Framework

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Mirroring
Block- & File-based
Synchronous & asynchronous
Object-based
Clustering
Automated Failover
Multi Node Support
Support & Services
Training & Optimization
Integration & Development
Guaranteed Response Time
Guaranteed Restore Time
Hardened Environment
Sizing Services
Protection
Integration Tape-Systems
Snapshotting
Consistent Snapshotting
Efficiency
Deduplication
Compression
Performance Config-Set
Config-Set for Virtualization
Unified and versatile
SAN / Block Storage
(FC, iSCSI, FCoE)
NAS / File-based (CIFS, NFS)
Object Storage
Central Configuration
Web Frontend
Command Line Interface
Dynamic Monitoring
Availability
Performance
Capacity
Cloud Support
OpenStack/Cinder
openQRM
Ceph
Umbrella Management
Master/Slave Architecture
Features

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Manage your Ceph nodes with openATTICs GUI
Packaged installation for rapid deployment through puppet/foreman (vanilla hardware, bare-metal)
Dashboards for cluster status overview
Management of clustered server hardware (add/remove node, replace devices)
Cluster management (resources, cluster and pool creation)
Monitoring the cluster (overall capacity, pool utilization, status of OSDs, Monitor and MDS processes,
Placement group status, RBD status)
Visualized CRUSH Map
Wizard-based best practices for many use cases
Hardened appliances based on Supermicro with guaranteed response and restoration times
Unified Storage: CIFS, NFS, iSCSI, FC, FCoE, ZFS, XFS, BTFRS, open API, SnapApps & much more

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openATTIC at a glance
openATTIC wizards for easy deployment

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openATTIC at a glance
Volume Monitoring

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openATTIC at a glance
Replication Rules

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Visualization
openATTIC at a glance

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openATTIC Features
Open
API
Object
Store
Cloud Storage
Application
Snapshotting
HA &
Monitoring
Smart SDS
HDFS, CephFS,
btrfs, zfs, xfs
FC, iSCSI
NFS, CIFS
Unified Storage
Trust in Open Source
Increase agility, simplify management and radically reduce costs.
Without compromises on availability, reliability or functionality.

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Thank you for your attention
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Without compromises on availability, reliability or functionality.
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