Ceph Q1 2026 Newsletter

Anthony Middleton

During this quarter, the Ceph Foundation focused on strengthening its structure by establishing new governance charters, event strategies, and financial plans. To enhance transparency as our community evolves, this newsletter offers a look behind the scenes at these foundational details. Our aim is to update Ceph Community members on the latest developments within the Foundation and to clarify how they can contribute to our ongoing growth. There are several ways to get involved with the foundation. If you have a concept for a Ceph-related project, we encourage you to take the first step toward bringing your idea to the next level and submit a funding request whenever you are ready. Feedback and suggestions will be offered along your journey with Ceph.

In this issue

  • CSC and Ceph Foundation Board Meeting
  • Ceph Foundation Charters Approved
  • Ceph Governing Board Hiring a Technical Writer
  • OVHcloud Spending Update
  • Ceph Tech Talks Are Back (Monthly Schedule)
  • Upcoming Ceph Days Events
  • Ceph Community Slack Upgraded to Pro

CSC and Ceph Foundation Board Meeting

The Ceph Foundation Board recently hosted the Ceph Steering Committee (CSC) for a collaborative discussion on the current state of the Ceph project and how both sides can work together to support the Ceph community.

These quarterly meetings are designed to foster communication between the two committees working to build Ceph for the benefit of its users and contributors. The Ceph Board's goal is to help provide greater context to the CSC as they make decisions and to support their missions, thereby bridging the communication gap. The meeting's agenda is available here.

Key discussion areas

  • Operational complexity
  • Friction in contributing and getting reviews
  • Fragmented communication
  • Unclear strategy in some areas
  • Unclear ownership across parts of the ecosystem

Major takeaways

  • The Board will continue to work on closing the gap between developer experience and real-world operator needs, with help from the CSC around failure handling and upgrades.
  • Both committees agreed that contributor experience remains a key challenge, with CI complexity and limited reviewer bandwidth identified as the biggest sources of friction, not the contribution process itself.
  • The Board and the CSC recognize that perception matters. After hearing feedback that Ceph feels “unwelcoming,” this concern is being addressed and will guide improvements in onboarding and engagement.
  • The Ceph Foundation will keep focusing on areas like performance and efficiency. There's an opportunity to improve how project-wide priorities are communicated, helping to align contributors and ecosystem partners.

Action Items

  • Ceph Community Manager: Document best practices for large contributions requiring early community engagement
  • Ceph Community Manager: Improve discoverability of contributor guidelines and ambassador resources
  • CSC: Prepare Q2 response on project priorities, pain points, and foundation delegation opportunities
  • Ceph Community Manager: Share contributor feedback data with CSC for deeper analysis

Road to Fully Onboarding into the Linux Foundation: Charters Approved

Ceph now has a clearly defined governance model that separates technical decision-making from funding and community growth, making it easier to understand how decisions are made and how to get involved. This task began in September 2025, when the Ceph Foundation initiated its transition into The Linux Foundation, marking a significant step toward strengthening the long-term sustainability and neutrality of the Ceph project.

The outcome of this work was the formal approval of two foundational governance frameworks. The Ceph Foundation Charter was established to define how the Foundation raises, allocates, and manages resources in support of the project, while also creating a clear and transparent structure for decision-making, community outreach, and ecosystem development. At its core, the Charter exists to ensure that Ceph operates as a vendor-neutral, community-driven project with sustainable funding and broad industry participation.

In parallel, the Ceph Technical Charter was approved by the Ceph Steering Committee (CSC), reinforcing the independence of the project’s technical governance and clarifying how technical decisions are made in alignment with the needs of the community.

Together, these milestones establish a balanced governance model: the Foundation focuses on funding, outreach, and ecosystem growth, while the technical community retains authority over the project’s technical direction and innovation.

The third and final step of this process, which is currently in the works, involves transferring the Ceph trademark to the Linux Foundation after completing steps one and two.

Review the Foundation Charter: https://cdn.platform.linuxfoundation.org/agreements/cephfoundation.pdf

Review the Ceph Technical Charter:
https://github.com/ceph/ceph/blob/main/doc/technical-charter.rst

Opportunity: Technical Writer Role Open

Ceph is investing directly in better documentation, making it easier for new users to adopt and experienced operators to scale, and helping those interested in contributing to Ceph get onboarded for development. The Ceph Technical Committee is actively interviewing a Technical Writer to help improve the quality and accessibility of Ceph documentation.

About the role

  • Focus on clarity, consistency, and usability of technical content
  • Collaborate with developers and contributors across the community
  • Help lower the barrier to entry for new users and operators

How to get involved

  • Review docs and flag gaps
  • Suggest onboarding pain points
  • Participate in doc sprints

OVHcloud Spending Update

The Ceph Governing Board, with Mark Nelson (Clyso) and Patrick Donnelly (IBM), is working to reduce infrastructure costs. Reports from Mark and Joachim Kraftmayer (Clyso) on OVHcloud show potential for lower monthly hosting expenses. Negotiations with OVHcloud could yield savings, which would be reinvested to boost the Foundation's support for community programs, events, and infrastructure.

Current overview

  • Monthly costs over the past year have ranged between **$5K–$10K USD **
  • Spending peaked around August and has since been reduced to approximately $7K/month
  • Costs remain higher than earlier in the year, prompting further review

Key cost drivers

  • A significant portion of expenses comes from storage
  • Four 10TB volumes (supporting Chacra nodes), along with associated snapshots, accounted for over half of total monthly costs (~$4K USD)

Recent actions

  • Unused snapshots and resources have been removed by David Galloway (IBM)
  • Ongoing collaboration with OVHcloud to identify additional optimization opportunities
  • Further cost savings are expected as usage is refined

What’s next

  • Continued monitoring and cost optimization efforts
  • Improved visibility into infrastructure usage and spending
  • Updates will be shared in the next newsletter and monthly reports as new efficiencies are realized

Ceph Tech Talks Are Back

Ceph Tech Talks have officially returned, giving the community a consistent way to learn directly from contributors and share real-world experience. Together, we have discussed the Running Teuthology Outside of the Sepia lab and How to Get Involved with the Ceph Ambassador Program.

Attend the Tech Talk on April 22, 2026, at 12 pm EST/9 am PDT. Our topic will be,** MAAS as a Backend: Provisioning Infrastructure for Teuthology Suites.**

Follow the Ceph Community Calendar for more information.

What to expect

  • Deep dives into real-world Ceph use cases and features
  • Presentations led by community members and contributors
  • A wide variety of topics for users and developers
  • Interactive sessions with opportunities for Q&A

Get involved

  • Attend upcoming sessions to stay current
  • Submit a proposal to present your work here

Upcoming Ceph Events and the State of Cephalocon

The Ceph Foundation is evolving its approach to events in order to better serve the global community.

Instead of focusing all of our resources on a single large event like Cephalocon, the Foundation is now emphasizing local and regional engagement to expand Ceph’s reach into nearby communities and projects. This shift was prompted by new guidelines regarding spending within the foundation. These current fiduciary guidelines still require broader community support and sponsorship participation.

What’s changing

  • Increased focus on Ceph Days, meetups, data-driven conferences, and community-led events
  • Strategic investment in opportunities that introduce Ceph to new audiences
  • A shift toward distributed, community-driven engagement

Important note on future large events

  • The Foundation remains open to hosting large-scale events like Cephalocon
  • This ensures alignment with the Foundation’s financial responsibilities while enabling sustainable growth

How to get involved

  • As part of the Foundation’s financial stewardship under the Linux Foundation, large-scale events require broader community sponsorship and participation
  • Organize or support a Ceph event in your region
  • Partner with related open source or data infrastructure communities

Need support?

  • Community members can submit funding requests to attend or organize events, as well as to support Ceph-related activities
  • Requests are reviewed by the Board (approval is not guaranteed)

Upcoming Ceph Days – March 2026

Ceph Days continues to grow as the primary way the community connects locally. There were two community-driven events that happened this March:

Ceph Days India

  • Sponsors: IBM
  • Attendees: 192

Ceph Days Raleigh

  • Sponsors: IBM
  • Attendees: 78

Why attend

  • Connect with other Ceph users and contributors
  • Learn from real-world deployments and technical sessions
  • Grow your local Ceph network

Get involved

Ceph Community Slack Upgraded to Pro

The community can now access Slack messages from the last 90 days! The Ceph Community Slack workspace has been upgraded to Slack Pro, courtesy of the Linux Foundation, as part of negotiations requested by the Ceph Board.

What this means

  • No more losing conversations after 90 days!
  • There is no additional cost to the Ceph community
  • A more robust platform for collaboration and communication

Why it matters

  • Supports better knowledge sharing across contributors and users
  • Improves accessibility of past discussions and technical insights
  • Strengthens real-time collaboration within the community

Get involved