Ceph Storage Research Core

The Center for Research Computing is excited to introduce new storage services at Kennesaw State University, aimed at supporting our researchers. 

  • The size of the new storage is around 4.3PB.
  • OSDF side
    • 30% of the storage is shared with the Open Science Data Federation (OSDF) on the NSF national infrastructure.
    • The OSDF storage can be used for sharing datasets with your external collaborators privately or publicly.
    • There is no specified data size limit for storage on the OSDF.
  • KSU side
    • 70% of the storage will be used for KSU research projects (Accessible via NetID). 
    • This local storage has a cost of $28 per TB/year.
    • Researchers who lack funding may apply for vouchers.
  • A Ceph System Map is available.

  • Storage on the KSU Ceph storage is organized by project.  A PI is required to request the storage in 1 TB increments.  The storage can be accessed via your computer (Mac, Windows or LInux) through a networked SMB share. 

    Each project will have three directories: users, repository, workplace. A user folder is created for each user under the users directory to be accessed by that user only. The PI has access (read/write) to all directories. Repository can be only written by the PI but accessible (read) only group members. Workplace can be read or written by all group members.

    • A private project directory is created for the project where the PI owns all the data in the three sub-directories of the project:Project example:
      • \\cephprdsmb01\projects\ProjectName\
    • A user account can be created for the PI and other users
      • User example: \\cephprdsmb01\projects\ProjectName\users\NetID
    • A shared repository directory writeable only by the PI
      • Repository example: \\cephprdsmb01\projects\ProjectName\repository
    • A shared workspace directory where project members can read and write
      • Workspace example: \\cephprdsmb01\projects\ProjectName\workspace

    The KSU side of the Ceph research data cluster is not meant for storing sensitive or confidential data.  While the storage uses erasure encoding to help prevent data loss during disk failures, the storage is not backed up, so there are risks to using this storage as your only long-term archive storage.  Please keep other copies of your data elsewhere.  The Office of Resarch and the Center for Research Computing are not responsible for lost data.

    1. Create a billable account or request a voucher with the Research Core Billable Account form.
    2. Add Ceph storage service to your account with the Research Core Service Request form.
    3. Add users to the service with the Research Core Service Management form.
    Note: Faculty PI can request others NetID users to have their own user account within the project.  This will also get them access to the workspace (r/w) and the repository (read only).
  • The KSU side of the Ceph storage cluster is available through the "vpn-groups" portal of the KSU VPN (vpn.kennesaw.edu).

    UITS has configured the storage to be available via SMB, which means your storage space is available from your desktop system (Win/Mac/Linux ) and from the KSU HPC (vhpc).

    Connection instructions for Windows, Mac, Linux or HPC.

To learn more about other strorage options available at KSU.