I wanted to send out a quick note to our audience interested in Ceph regarding our latest reference architecture using Red Hat^® Ceph Storage. As many of you probably know, Ceph is the go-to open-source storage solution that provides scalable, low-cost, and flexible data management.

Used as a foundation for OpenStack cloud deployments and data analytics solutions, Ceph has grown in popularity over the last year or two. With an architecture optimized for object storage on flash, Micron has put a key focus on Ceph to highlight how Micron SSDs can enhance your open-source solutions over the last year or so. Our previous all-NVMe Micron 9200 based Ceph reference architecture (RA) was one of the fastest Ceph deployments we tested generating over 2 million IOPS using four rack units (RUs).

With the release of our third-generation Micron 9300 NVMe SSD, we have updated our all-NVMe Ceph RA. With expanded options for capacity (up to 15TB) and “no compromise” symmetric read and write throughput¹ (rated at 3500 MB/s each way), the Micron 9300 SSD is a great option for your Ceph needs. While we were at it, we also updated our Red Hat Ceph Storage Solution to the latest version (version 3.2). Together, we have a more cost-effective² , high-performance Ceph solution than our previous 9200-based Ceph offering.

For this go around, we used 10x 12.8TB 9300 MAX SSDs per node for four Ceph data nodes resulting in a raw capacity of 512TB in four RUs. Of course, we build our RAs with the understanding that our component choices may not fit your needs. If you want to use a different server vendor, CPU, drive capacity, or network vendor, that’s fine with us. We build these RAs to highlight the value of flash for Ceph storage, not to lock you into a fixed configuration. In this case, we used three 1RU Ceph monitor nodes and four 1RU data nodes. On each node we installed version 7.6 of Red Hat^® Enterprise Linux^® to host Red Hat Ceph Storage using the BlueStore storage engine for optimal performance on SSDs.

The result? How about over 48GiB of sequential 4MB object read throughput or over 2 million 4KiB IOPS! The charts below show the full set of results, but of even more interest is that the new 9300 – of the same endurance class and capacity – has a much better price point – as much as 30+ percent less^{2, 3}, – than our previous second generation 9200 SSDs. So we get all the performance we experienced with the 9200 but at a much lower cost. Need additional performance? Add more data nodes. Need to have more capacity? How about deploying our 15TB SSD, or simply add more SSDs to your existing storage nodes? The freedom to choose what you want, or need, is yours.

So, if you are thinking about your storage future and still believe that flash is just too expensive, think again. You get more control over your storage solution by using a quality software-defined storage solution such as Red Hat Ceph Storage at a better cost than the many legacy, proprietary arrays you may have typically used in the past. By adding the Micron 9300 NVMe SSD to the solution, you get all of the performance that NVMe has been designed to provide — think 3500MB/s read AND write throughput¹ and up to 850,000 read IOPS per SSD — at a much more attractive price point than in the past.

To learn more about all of our Ceph solution RAs, visit our Micron Accelerated Ceph solution page. To see how the Micron 9300 SSD can make your solution better, visit our Micron 9300 SSD product page.

Stay up to date with Micron by following us on Twitter @MicronStorage and connecting with us on LinkedIn.

¹Available on 9300 PRO 7.68TB & 15.36TB and 9300 MAX 6.4TB & 12.8TB offerings.

²Actual pricing may vary.

³Pricing based on market price as of 4/29/2019. www.acmemicro.com.