Overview

This course is designed to provide participants with a comprehensive understanding of how to plan, deploy, configure, and manage IBM Storage Ceph in enterprise environments. Through lectures, demonstrations, and extensive hands-on exercises, students will gain practical skills for working with Ceph’s distributed storage architecture. Key topics include cluster deployment, administration, data protection, and performance optimization, as well as using Ceph for object, block, and file storage workloads. By the end of the course, students will be equipped to integrate Ceph into enterprise infrastructures and operate it effectively in production environments.

Audience

Clients, Business Partners and IBMers

Prerequisites

Objective

• Summarize the Ceph architecture, cluster components, and storage constructs, and differentiate client and administrator access interfaces.
• Deploy and expand an IBM Storage Ceph cluster using cephadm and command-line tools to meet application storage requirements.
• Compare and evaluate the different Ceph management interfaces for operational tasks.
• Configure Ceph storage pools, OSDs, and authentication mechanisms, including replicated and erasure-coded pools and CephX user authorization.
• Implement RADOS Gateway object storage, including multisite configuration for geographically redundant access.
• Explain Ceph block storage principles and configure RBD devices with NVMe/TCP integration.
• Configure CephFS to provide file storage, implement advanced features such as snapshots, replication, memory management, and client access.
• Administer and update the CRUSH map and OSD maps to manage data placement and protection policies.
• Analyze Ceph cluster performance, tune resources, and troubleshoot storage-related issues.
• Describe how Ceph integrates with Red Hat OpenStack and OpenShift to support storage requirements for each platform.

Course Outline

• Unit 1: Introduction to IBM Storage Ceph
• Introduction to IBM Storage Ceph
• Ceph storage architecture
• Ceph storage architecture in-depth
• Getting started with labs (Video)
• Exercise 1: Deploying IBM Storage Ceph
• Unit 2: Deploying IBM Storage Ceph
• Plan and deploy a cluster using cephadm command-line tools
• Expand capacity of an existing cluster
• Exercise 2: Expanding the Ceph cluster
• Unit 3: Managing IBM Storage Ceph
• Ceph dashboard
• Cephadm command-line interface
• Ceph Orchestrator service specifications
• Exercise 3a: Managing the Ceph cluster
• Exercise 3b: Managing the Ceph cluster using Cephadm
• Exercise 3c: Managing the Ceph cluster using Service Specifications
• Unit 4: Configuring Storage in Ceph
• Ceph storage devices
• Creating and configuring Ceph pools
• Managing Ceph authentication
• Exercise 4: Managing the Ceph Storage and Device Classes
• Unit 5: Object Storage with Ceph
• Deploy Ceph Object Storage components: concepts and implementation
• Deploying the Ceph RADOS Gateway
• Ceph RADOS Gateway options and using the Beast frontend
• Exercise 5: Ceph Object Storage Gateway (RGW)
• Unit 6: Block Storage with Ceph
• Managing RADOS Block Devices
• Introducing Ceph NVMe over Fabrics (NVMe/TCP)
• Deploying Ceph NVMe over Fabrics (NVMe/TCP)
• Ceph NVMe over Fabrics client experience
• Exercise 6: Ceph Block Storage (RBD) and NVMe
• Unit 7: File Storage with CephFS
• Ceph file storage: introduction and deployment
• NFS client access
• CephFS and MDS deeper dive
• Ceph Dashboard screen capture
• Exercise 7: Ceph File System (CephFS)
• Unit 8: Managing Ceph data protection and the Ceph CRUSH map
• Ceph Placement Groups
• Ceph CRUSH algorithm
• Managing the OSD map
• Exercise 8: Managing Ceph Data Protection and CRUSH Map
• Unit 9: Optimizing, tuning, and troubleshooting Ceph
• Optimizing Ceph storage performance — overview, concepts and recommended practices
• Designing the Ceph cluster: recommended practices
• Tuning with Ceph performance tools
• Exercise 9: Optimizing, Tuning, and Troubleshooting Ceph
• Unit 10: Red Hat OpenStack and OpenShift Integration with Ceph
• Introducing the OpenStack storage architecture
• Services for integrating storage in OpenStack
• Introducing and implementing OpenShift storage architecture
• Related courses
• Badge quiz