It is possible to set up an entire Ceph cluster in a virtual environment. But this cluster should only be used for training and learning purposes. If you are learning Ceph for the first time and do not want to invest in the physical hardware, then a virtualized Ceph platform is certainly possible. This will eliminate the need to set up the physical hardware to set up Ceph nodes. The procedure to set up a virtual Ceph cluster is exactly the same as for a physical one.