Storage capabilities
Multi-backend storage with built-in Ceph orchestration
Basalt storage manages the pools that compute consumes, from local directory pools to orchestrated Ceph RBD and DRBD replication. It exposes storage capabilities honestly so operators know which features apply to each backend.
Storage participates in Basalt’s three-component architecture: gateway intent, agent convergence, and portal workflows. Compute uses these pools for VM disks, templates, and migration decisions, making storage a central part of the VMware alternative story.
Storage Pool Management
Basalt manages directory, LVM, NFS, iSCSI, GlusterFS, Ceph RBD, and DRBD backends. Pools can be resized online where the backend supports it, and the LVM integration applies filters that prevent accidental collisions with unrelated host volumes.
The per-pool capability matrix is part of the product model. UIs can show which operations apply to a selected backend, and operators get a structured answer rather than a generic failure when a storage feature is unavailable.
Ceph RBD Orchestration
Basalt can stand up a Ceph cluster from the control plane: add hosts, place Mon and Mgr daemons, create OSDs, manage RBD pools, and issue client credentials. The orchestration surface covers roughly fifteen task kinds, giving operators an infrastructure workflow instead of a runbook stitched together from shell commands.
Client-credential rotation and libvirt secret installation are native operations. This removes the single biggest reason teams pick a managed Ceph — provided they do not depend on VM snapshots on RBD, which Basalt deliberately does not claim to support.
DRBD Replication
DRBD support provides synchronous block replication between two hosts. If the primary fails, HA workflows can promote the secondary and keep libvirt integration aligned with the new storage role.
The important part is that pool management, role transitions, and VM integration share one control plane. Operators do not have to coordinate an external replication system by hand while the compute scheduler makes separate assumptions.
Image Library
The image library supports chunked-resume uploads with HMAC-signed single-use tokens, SHA-256 integrity checks, and durable callback spooling with exponential backoff. It is resilient to network blips during multi-GB uploads, which is when fragile image workflows usually fail.