Red Hat today announces the release of Inktank Ceph Enterprise 1.2, the storage platform that Red Hat acquired in April 2014. Inktank Ceph delivers object and block storage for cloud storage use cases, with a specific focus to date on storage solutions for OpenStack deployments. Today’s release features the addition of erasure coding functionality that allows customers to more cost effectively store replicas of storage objects by using a mathematical technique that transforms an object defined by k variables into n variables, where n > k. Erasure coding breaks data into constituent components and subsequently delocalizes the fragments across different storage platforms in a way that circumvents the necessity of storing exact replicas of the storage objects in question. The addition of erasure coding reduces the cost of storage per GB, thereby rendering Inktank Ceph more affordable for customers that have massive amounts of structured or unstructured data. Additionally, Inktank Ceph Enterprise 1.2 features Cache Tiering functionality that moves hot data to high performance storage devices when needed, and cold data to lower performance devices. With today’s release, Inktank Ceph embraces a range of use cases over and beyond storage solutions for OpenStack deployments such as the storage of massive amounts of unstructured data for customers with high volumes of document-based, textual or media content. Inktank Ceph also supports Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform 5 and thereby allows Red Hat to deliver an integrated OpenStack solution based on technology from one vendor. In conjunction with enhancements to Calamari, the platform’s management console, Inktank Ceph 1.2 positions itself as a cost-effective storage platform that is able to manage an increasing variety of customer use cases.
Cloud Computing Today 