5 .. index:: Ceph Block Device; introduction
7 A block is a sequence of bytes (for example, a 512-byte block of data).
8 Block-based storage interfaces are the most common way to store data with
9 rotating media such as hard disks, CDs, floppy disks, and even traditional
10 9-track tape. The ubiquity of block device interfaces makes a virtual block
11 device an ideal candidate to interact with a mass data storage system like Ceph.
13 Ceph block devices are thin-provisioned, resizable and store data striped over
14 multiple OSDs in a Ceph cluster. Ceph block devices leverage
15 :abbr:`RADOS (Reliable Autonomic Distributed Object Store)` capabilities
16 such as snapshotting, replication and consistency. Ceph's
17 :abbr:`RADOS (Reliable Autonomic Distributed Object Store)` Block Devices (RBD)
18 interact with OSDs using kernel modules or the ``librbd`` library.
20 .. ditaa:: +------------------------+ +------------------------+
21 | Kernel Module | | librbd |
22 +------------------------+-+------------------------+
24 +------------------------+-+------------------------+
26 +------------------------+ +------------------------+
28 .. note:: Kernel modules can use Linux page caching. For ``librbd``-based
29 applications, Ceph supports `RBD Caching`_.
31 Ceph's block devices deliver high performance with infinite scalability to
32 `kernel modules`_, or to :abbr:`KVMs (kernel virtual machines)` such as `QEMU`_, and
33 cloud-based computing systems like `OpenStack`_ and `CloudStack`_ that rely on
34 libvirt and QEMU to integrate with Ceph block devices. You can use the same cluster
35 to operate the :ref:`Ceph RADOS Gateway <object-gateway>`, the
36 :ref:`Ceph File System <ceph-file-system>`, and Ceph block devices simultaneously.
38 .. important:: To use Ceph Block Devices, you must have access to a running
44 Basic Commands <rados-rbd-cmds>
49 Operations <rbd-operations>
54 Integrations <rbd-integrations>
66 .. _RBD Caching: ./rbd-config-ref/
67 .. _kernel modules: ./rbd-ko/
69 .. _OpenStack: ./rbd-openstack
70 .. _CloudStack: ./rbd-cloudstack