Lightbits Labs has announced Intelligent Cluster Management (ICM), a centralized control plane for its software-defined block storage platform. Currently available as a technical preview in Lightbits software version 3.17.1, ICM aims to simplify and automate storage management tasks across multiple independent Lightbits clusters, targeting large-scale, high-performance data center environments running Kubernetes, KubeVirt, OpenShift, and OpenStack.
ICM provides a single operational framework to manage and orchestrate storage fleets exceeding 100 petabytes. It functions as a multi-cluster management and provisioning broker, interfacing with Kubernetes Container Storage Interface (CSI) plugins, hypervisors, and OpenStack Cinder drivers. Using its Intelligent Placement Logic, ICM selects the optimal cluster for new storage objects based on real-time capacity, defined policies, and operational state—addressing workflow bottlenecks and manual balancing challenges inherent to single-cluster management in hyperscale and cloud-native data centers.
The platform supports several features for large-scale data center operations, including automated capacity balancing where new workloads are provisioned on clusters with the most available space and operational controls for maintenance, upgrades, or cluster decommissioning without service disruption. ICM also allows operators to freeze clusters or disable new provisioning as needed. Backward compatibility is supported with prior Lightbits software versions, hybrid clusters, and existing Lightbits services such as Data Mobility Service and Photon.
Highlighting the operational benefits, Robert Terlizzi, Head of Product Marketing at Lightbits Labs, said, “ICM becomes the air-traffic controller for your data platform. It unifies and simplifies storage management without ever impacting the direct NVMe over TCP data path, ensuring customers get fast performance with dramatically reduced operational overhead.”
ICM targets high-density, performance-sensitive workloads typical in data center and cloud environments, and is designed to help operators maintain efficiency and consistency across expanding environments.
Source: Lightbits Labs
