Choosing your hardware

The infrastructure section of this chapter will have given you a good idea on the hardware requirements of Ceph and the theory behind selecting the correct hardware for the project. The second biggest cause of outages with a Ceph cluster is caused by poor hardware choices, making the right choices early on in the design stage crucial.

If possible, check with your hardware vendor to see if they have any reference designs, these are often certified by Red Hat and will take a lot of the hard work off your shoulders in trying to determine if your hardware choices are valid. You can also ask Red Hat or your chosen Ceph support vendor to validate your hardware; they will have had previous experience and will be able to guide you around any questions you may have.

Finally, if you are planning on deploying and running your Ceph cluster entirely in-house without any third-party involvement or support, consider reaching out to the Ceph community. The Ceph-users mailing list is participated in by individuals from vastly different backgrounds stretching right round the globe. There is a high chance that someone somewhere will be doing something similar to you and will be able to advise you on hardware choice.