IBM Storage Ceph Block storage for VMware, using the NVMe/TCP protocol

Why NVMe/TCP?
IBM Storage Ceph block storage can be consumed by Linux clients, because the Ceph block storage driver is available in every Linux kernel by default.
This means that a Linux system can understand and access a Ceph RBD (Rados Block Device) volume without additional software requirements.

This is also where things become different, when a non-Linux client would want to access Ceph Block storage, RBD volumes,
An example of a non-Linux client could be VMware vSphere. VMware does not have a Linux kernel that supports Ceph RBD access.
For non-Linux clients who want to access Ceph block storage, NVMe/TCP is an appealing alternative option.

NVMe/TCP is a storage networking technology that allows servers to access fast NVMe SSDs over a standard Ethernet network using the familiar TCP/IP protocol. Think of it as extending the speed and efficiency of local NVMe drives across the network, so applications can use remote storage almost as if it were directly attached.

It works by taking NVMe commands, packaging them into TCP/IP packets, and sending them over Ethernet to a storage system. The storage target receives the commands, processes them on the NVMe drives, and returns the data the same way. Because it uses standard networking equipment and protocols, NVMe/TCP is easier and more cost-effective to deploy than specialized storage networks, while still delivering very high performance and low latency.

VMware Plugin
Having the ability to connect to Ceph block devices over NVMe/TCP is one thing, however, IBM Storage Ceph also offers a vSphere Plugin to make consumption of IBM Storage Ceph based block volumes an easy task for VMware administrators, who may be less familiar with Storage Ceph internals.

Demo videos
Here are four short demo videos walking you through the process, how to leverage the NVMe/TCP connection to IBM Storage Ceph. 

1.  vSpherePluginIntro by Hannah Berrisford. 
      Hannah will take you through an introduction to the vSphere Plugin in IBM Storage Ceph.

2. Plugin installation by Paul Roberts.
     Paul will show you how to install the vSphere plugin.

3. Preparation of the IBM Storage Ceph cluster by Victoria Mackie.
     Victoria will demonstrate how the cluster is prepared.

4. Adding the storage system to VMware by Jake Squelch.
     Jake will show the required steps to add the storage.

More technical information
Is available at IBM's official documentation pages for Storage Ceph.