Ceph

What Ceph does

Ceph is an open-source distributed storage system that provides unified object, block, and file storage interfaces from a single RADOS cluster. Originating as Sage Weil's 2004 PhD research at UC Santa Cruz and commercialized through Inktank (acquired by Red Hat in 2014 for approximately $100 million), Ceph is now governed as an open-source project under the Linux Foundation via the Ceph Foundation (established 2018), with the Ceph trademark held by Red Hat. The architecture is built around the CRUSH algorithm for controlled, scalable, decentralized data placement and includes sub-products such as RADOS Gateway (S3/Swift-compatible object storage), RADOS Block Device, CephFS, BlueStore, and the next-generation Crimson OSD with SeaStore backend optimized for NVMe and multi-core hardware via the Seastar framework. Self-managing and self-healing capabilities target reduced operational overhead at exabyte scale.

Ceph serves large enterprises (Bloomberg, IBM, Intel, Samsung, Western Digital, OVH, US Signal, THG), academic and research institutions (Minnesota Supercomputing Institute, University of Kentucky, CERN), government and defense agencies (US Air Force), and cloud service providers, with documented deployments spanning the United States, United Kingdom, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, and Canada. The project scales to hundreds of exabytes and is supported by a global community reaching over 15,000 newsletter followers.

The Ceph Foundation generates revenue through tiered annual membership fees (Silver $10-15K, Gold $24-30K, Platinum $40-50K, Diamond $80-100K), with Diamond members including Bloomberg, IBM, 45drives, and Clyso. The project itself is distributed free via ceph.io and GitHub under open-source licensing; commercial support, training, and managed services are delivered through ecosystem members including Red Hat, IBM, Canonical, and SoftIron rather than by the Ceph Foundation directly. The Ceph Foundation operates with 1-10 employees.

Name

Ceph

Legal name

Ceph (maintained by Red Hat, Inc.)

Website

https://ceph.io

Company type

Private

Founded year

2004

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Ceph is an open-source distributed storage system providing unified object, block, and file storage from a single RADOS cluster, governed under the Linux Foundation with the trademark held by Red Hat. It serves enterprises, research institutions, government, and cloud providers with deployments scaling to hundreds of exabytes.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Distributed Storage Software

NAICS

Computing Infrastructure Providers, Data Processing, Web Hosting, and Related Services (5182), Software Publishers (513210)

SIC

Computer Storage Devices (3572)

akta.pro primary industry

Edge Storage & Distributed Caching (KV/Object, Edge Cache) (HDABAGAI)

akta.pro secondary industry

Edge Compute & Edge Caching Platforms (MPAHAIAC)

Keywords

• Distributed storage systems
• Object block file storage
• Software-defined storage
• Open source storage
• Unified storage cluster

Headquarters

HQ city

Los Angeles

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Foundation Membership Fees: Organizations pay annual membership fees to join the Ceph Foundation at various tiers (Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond) to support the project and gain governance participation.
2. Enterprise Support Services: Commercial support and services provided by member organizations like Red Hat, IBM, and other ecosystem companies that offer enterprise-grade Ceph support contracts.
3. Training and Professional Services: Foundation organizations provide valuable training and professional services for users of Ceph, creating revenue opportunities for members.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels10 records

Core offering

Ceph is an open-source distributed storage system that provides unified object, block, and file storage from a single RADOS cluster. It uses the CRUSH algorithm to distribute data across commodity hardware with self-managing and self-healing capabilities, eliminating vendor lock-in and supporting deployments from small clusters to hundreds of exabytes.

Product overview

Ceph is an open-source distributed storage platform that provides unified object (via RADOS Gateway/RGW), block (via RADOS Block Device/RBD), and file (via CephFS) storage interfaces from a single RADOS cluster. The core Ceph platform uses the CRUSH algorithm for intelligent data placement and offers self-managing, self-healing capabilities. Key components include Crimson OSD (high-performance OSD for NVMe using Seastar framework), SeaStore (new native object store for Crimson), BlueStore (default object storage backend), RGW (S3/Swift-compatible object gateway), RBD (block storage), CephFS (file storage), and the Ceph Manager for cluster monitoring. The platform runs on commodity hardware with no vendor lock-in.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Ceph (Core Platform) Open-source distributed storage system providing unified object, block, and file storage from a single RADOS cluster for enterprises, cloud providers, research institutions, and government organizations. Features self-managing and self-healing capabilities, runs on commodity hardware with no vendor lock-in.
• RADOS Gateway (RGW) Object storage interface providing Amazon S3 and OpenStack Swift API compatibility for object storage workloads with platform and hardware independence.
• RADOS Block Device (RBD) Thinly provisioned block storage with snapshotting, replication, and striping capabilities providing block device images through the RADOS cluster.
• CephFS POSIX-compliant file system interface with dynamic metadata rebalancing and high performance, operating within the same scalable system as object and block storage.
• Crimson OSD Next-generation high-performance Object Storage Daemon optimized for NVMe storage devices. Built on the Seastar framework with kernel bypass, shared-nothing architecture, and run-to-completion model for multi-core scaling. Designed as drop-in replacement for classic OSD with librados protocol support.
• SeaStore Native object store backend for Crimson OSD developed with the Seastar framework. Supports segmented backend for sequential writes, random-block backend for random writes, ZNS devices, and device tiering.
• BlueStore Default object storage backend for Ceph OSDs, providing efficient storage of objects on disk with improved performance over the legacy Filestore backend.

Quantifiable outcome

• Self-managing and self-healing reduces operational overhead by automatically finding and rectifying issues before users are aware
• +1 more outcomes

Named customers6 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature7 records

Partnerships

15 partnerships are on record, tiered core and flagship.

• Linux FoundationcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCeph Foundation is organized under the Linux Foundation umbrella. Linux Foundation provides financial, logistical, and governance support for the Ceph project. Founded in 2000, Linux Foundation supports open source communities through infrastructure, services, events, and training.
• Red HatcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerRed Hat owns the Ceph trademark and provides primary hosting for ceph.io website and project infrastructure. Red Hat's involvement includes maintaining trademark policy and providing platform for community collaboration.
• IBMcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerDiamond member of Ceph Foundation providing significant development contributions including Crimson project work, performance benchmarking, and enterprise storage solutions. IBM provides technical support professionals for Ceph Storage.
• BloombergflagshipStrategic or Co-development PartnerDiamond member of Ceph Foundation supporting the open source project and utilizing Ceph for enterprise storage solutions.
• 45drivesflagshipTechnology or IntegrationDiamond member providing Ceph-based storage solutions with specialized hardware appliances.
• ClysoflagshipStrategic or Co-development PartnerDiamond member offering Ceph consulting and managed services for enterprise deployments.
• Western DigitalflagshipTechnology or IntegrationPlatinum member providing storage hardware expertise and integration support for Ceph deployments.
• CanonicalcoreChannel Partner/ Reseller/ DistributorSilver member providing Ceph integration with Ubuntu and offering Ceph software engineering positions. Canonical distributes Ceph as part of its open source infrastructure solutions.
• DigitalOceancoreChannel Partner/ Reseller/ DistributorSilver member utilizing Ceph for cloud infrastructure storage needs.
• OVHcoreChannel Partner/ Reseller/ DistributorSilver member offering Ceph-based cloud storage services.
• IntelcoreTechnology or IntegrationFeatured on ceph.io users page providing hardware expertise and integration support for Ceph deployments, contributing to Crimson project development.
• SamsungcoreTechnology or IntegrationFeatured on ceph.io users page contributing to Ceph research and development, particularly in deduplication architecture.
• SoftIroncoreTechnology or IntegrationHardware vendor providing HyperDrive storage appliances optimized for Ceph, featured in multiple case studies (US Signal, THG, US Air Force, universities).
• CERNcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerAssociate member representing major research institution utilizing Ceph for large-scale data storage in particle physics research.
• OpenInfra FoundationcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerAssociate member representing open infrastructure community collaboration.

Scale indicators4 records

Recent moves7 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• MinIO: Open-source S3-compatible object storage system offering high-performance distributed storage. Comparable to Ceph's RADOS Gateway as a leading open-source distributed storage project targeting enterprise and cloud-native workloads, though focused purely on object storage.
• Rook: CNCF open-source storage orchestrator for Kubernetes with primary support for Ceph deployments. Highly comparable as a Ceph-coupled open-source storage project in the cloud-native ecosystem, serving the same Kubernetes-adopting enterprise base.
• GlusterFS: Red Hat-maintained open-source distributed file system historically positioned alongside Ceph in Red Hat's storage portfolio. Comparable as open-source distributed file/block storage with a similar self-managed, commodity-hardware deployment model and overlapping user base.
• Apache HDFS: Apache Hadoop's distributed file system widely deployed for big data and analytics workloads at petabyte/exabyte scale. Comparable as open-source distributed storage handling massive data volumes, often used as alternative or complement to Ceph in enterprise data architectures.
• OpenStack Swift: OpenStack's open-source object storage component offering S3-like API with strong multi-tenancy. Comparable as open-source distributed object storage serving similar cloud provider and enterprise use cases, particularly in OpenStack-based private clouds.

Emerging players

• OpenEBS: Open-source container-attached storage (CAS) for Kubernetes workloads with a focus on cloud-native storage scenarios. Comparable as newer open-source alternative increasingly competing with Ceph's Kubernetes-orchestrated RBD deployments.
• Longhorn: SUSE-maintained open-source lightweight block storage system for Kubernetes providing persistent volumes for containers. Comparable as open-source Kubernetes-native block storage alternative competing with Ceph's RBD in cloud-native deployments.

Broad incumbents

• Scality: Enterprise object and file storage vendor offering Zenko (open-source multi-cloud data orchestration) and proprietary RING/CONNEC software-defined storage. Comparable as larger commercial player offering distributed storage at petabyte/exabyte scale to enterprises and service providers.
• NetApp: Major enterprise storage incumbent offering ONTAP-based unified block/file/object storage arrays including NetApp StorageGRID for object workloads. Comparable as established vendor with overlapping unified storage story competing for enterprise data center consolidation budgets.
• Dell PowerScale: Dell's enterprise scale-out NAS platform (formerly Isilon) for large-scale file and unstructured data workloads. Comparable as established enterprise storage incumbent competing for unstructured data workloads including those addressed by CephFS.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat6 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/ceph
• GitHubgithub.com/ceph/ceph
• YouTubeyoutube.com/channel/UCno-Fry25FJ7B4RycCxOtfw
• Facebookfacebook.com/cephstorage
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/ceph

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Ceph