diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 502a82e5..93bb0104 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -100,7 +100,7 @@ glance is a combination of Puppet manifest and ruby code to deliver configuratio
 Limitations
 ------------
 
-* Only supports configuring the file and swift storage backends.
+* Only supports configuring the file, swift and rbd storage backends.
 
 Development
 -----------
diff --git a/manifests/backend/rbd.pp b/manifests/backend/rbd.pp
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..dbbbc39f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/manifests/backend/rbd.pp
@@ -0,0 +1,27 @@
+#
+# configures the storage backend for glance
+# as a rbd instance
+#
+#  $rbd_store_user - Optional.
+#
+#  $rbd_store_pool - Optional. Default:'images',
+#
+
+class glance::backend::rbd(
+  $rbd_store_user = undef,
+  $rbd_store_pool = 'images',
+) {
+  include glance::params
+
+  glance_api_config {
+    'DEFAULT/default_store':     value => 'rbd';
+    'DEFAULT/rbd_store_user':    value => $rbd_store_user;
+    'DEFAULT/rbd_store_pool':    value => $rbd_store_pool;
+  }
+
+  package { 'python-ceph':
+    ensure => 'present',
+    name   => $::glance::params::pyceph_package_name,
+  }
+
+}
diff --git a/manifests/params.pp b/manifests/params.pp
index 46efc983..5b6a6ec5 100644
--- a/manifests/params.pp
+++ b/manifests/params.pp
@@ -3,6 +3,7 @@
 class glance::params {
 
   $client_package_name = 'python-glanceclient'
+  $pyceph_package_name = 'python-ceph'
 
   case $::osfamily {
     'RedHat': {
diff --git a/spec/classes/glance_backend_rbd_spec.rb b/spec/classes/glance_backend_rbd_spec.rb
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..7db49543
--- /dev/null
+++ b/spec/classes/glance_backend_rbd_spec.rb
@@ -0,0 +1,26 @@
+require 'spec_helper'
+
+describe 'glance::backend::rbd' do
+  let :facts do
+    {
+      :osfamily => 'Debian'
+    }
+  end
+
+  let :params do
+    {
+      :rbd_store_user  => 'user',
+    }
+  end
+
+  it { should contain_glance_api_config('DEFAULT/default_store').with_value('rbd') }
+  it { should contain_glance_api_config('DEFAULT/rbd_store_user').with_value('user') }
+  it { should contain_glance_api_config('DEFAULT/rbd_store_pool').with_value('images') }
+
+  it { should contain_package('python-ceph').with(
+      :name   => 'python-ceph',
+      :ensure => 'present'
+    )
+  }
+
+end