Cisco Cisco UCS C22 M3 Rack Server White Paper

 

 

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White Paper 

Cisco UCS C3160 High Density Rack Server with 
Red Hat Ceph Storage 

Executive Summary

 

Object storage resolves the challenges of storing massive amounts of data: in particular, unstructured data. Object 

storage provides the infrastructure to store files along with their metadata, together called objects. Object storage 

can be accessed through applications that use Representational State Transfer (REST) APIs. The widespread use 

of big data has led to massive growth in storage requirements, scalability challenges for traditional file- and block-

based systems, and the need for simpler and easier maintenance. These factors together have led to a rapid 

increase in object storage hardware and software solutions. 

Object storage allows you to store volumes of unstructured data. Online web services, cloud backup, file sharing, 

cloud archives: all are among the many use cases for object storage. Although there are many commercial 

solutions on the market, Ceph open-source software is gaining predominance. Ceph not only offers object storage, 

but also block and file system open-source and free software solutions. 

The Cisco UCS

®

 C3160 and C240 M4 Rack Servers hardware are well suited for object storage solutions like 

Ceph. The Cisco UCS C3160 is a modular server with high storage density and is directed particularly at the use 

cases mentioned in this document. It combines industry-leading performance and scalability and is well suited for 

OpenStack, Ceph-based storage, and other software-defined distributed storage environments. 

This document provides an overview of the use of a Cisco UCS C3160 server with Ceph in a scaling multinode 

setup with petabytes (PB) of storage. It demonstrates the suitability of the Cisco UCS C3160 in object and 

block storage environments, and the se

rver’s dense storage capabilities, performance, and scalability as you 

add more nodes. 

Ceph Object Storage on Cisco UCS C3160 High-Density Rack Server 

The Cisco UCS C3160 Rack Server (Figure 1) is a modular, high-density rack server well suited for service 

providers, enterprises, and industry-specific environments seeking to deploy software-defined storage solutions. 

The Cisco UCS C3160 addresses the need for highly scalable computing with high-capacity local storage at 

lower cost-per-gigabyte prices that is essential for an object storage deployment. Designed for a new class of 

cloud-scale applications, it is simple to deploy and excellent for unstructured data repositories, media streaming, 

and content distribution. 

The server uses a modular server archite

cture that takes advantage of Cisco’s blade technology expertise, 

allowing you to upgrade the computing and network nodes in the system without requiring data migration from one 

system to another. Its modular architecture reduces the total cost of ownership (TCO) by allowing you to upgrade 

individual components over time and as use cases evolve, without having to replace the entire system.