The IIS Lightbits Appliance
Prebuilt, Fully Tested, Ready to Rack
A turnkey, software-defined block storage appliance — engineered by IIS Technology on certified enterprise hardware and powered by Lightbits LightOS. Skip the integration risk. Deploy NVMe/TCP performance on day one.
Lenovo ThinkSystem compute is the primary hardware platform IIS uses to build every appliance.
One appliance. Zero integration guesswork.
Lightbits is easy to deploy as software — but a production-grade storage cluster is still a stack of decisions: which NVMe drives, which NICs, how many replicas, how it plugs into OpenShift or your automation platform. The IIS Lightbits Appliance removes that guesswork.
IIS Technology, an Authorized Lightbits Partner and Red Hat Platinum Partner, pre-selects a certified hardware bill of materials, installs and tunes LightOS, validates NVMe/TCP multipath and failover, and benchmarks the cluster against your workload targets — before it ever ships. What arrives at your data center is a tested system, not a parts list.
Every appliance is custom-built to the workload: transactional databases, storage-offload for block I/O, or GPU-adjacent storage for AI/ML pipelines. IIS also implements and customizes the application stack on top of it — whether that means a virtualization platform (VMware or OpenShift Virtualization) or a container platform (Kubernetes/OpenShift) — so the appliance is ready for how your team actually runs workloads. The diagram below shows how the technology layers stack up, and exactly where IIS does the building.
Built on the Lightbits Standard
Lightbits invented NVMe over TCP and built the only software-defined storage platform designed natively around it — no gateways, no protocol translation.
Built on Lenovo Compute
Lenovo ThinkSystem servers are the key hardware solution IIS uses to build the appliance, with HPE and Dell reference architectures available on request.
Validated Before It Ships
FIO/vdbench benchmarking and induced-failure testing happen at IIS's staging facility, not after the appliance is racked in your environment.
The Five Layers of an IIS Lightbits Appliance
From the physical drives to the applications consuming storage, each layer is a deliberate build decision. IIS assembles, configures, and validates every one of them.
What Each Layer Delivers
A closer look at the technology in each layer, and the specific build decision IIS makes there.
Certified Hardware Foundation
- Lenovo ThinkSystem compute (key hardware solution)
- NVMe SSDs (capacity or performance tier)
- High-throughput NICs (25/100GbE)
Builds on Lenovo compute as the primary hardware platform for the appliance — with HPE or Dell reference architectures available on request — then assembles, racks, and burns in the cluster.
Standard Ethernet Network Fabric
- NVMe/TCP over existing Ethernet
- No specialized fabric or gateways
- Multipath & ANA failover
Validates multipath and failover behavior and induces controller failure to confirm seconds-level recovery before ship.
LightOS Storage Engine
- Elastic RAID: erasure coding + replication
- Snapshots & QoS
- 1, 2, or 3 replicas, per volume
Installs LightOS and configures replica/durability policy to match each workload's risk tolerance and cost target.
Management & Orchestration
- LightOS management API/UI
- Kubernetes / OpenShift CSI driver
- Ansible Automation Platform content
Develops reusable AAP playbooks and OpenShift StorageClass integration for day-2 operations and event-driven response.
Application & Workload Consumption
- Virtualization platforms (VMware, OpenShift Virtualization)
- Container platforms (Kubernetes/OpenShift)
- Databases & AI/ML training/inference
Implements and customizes both the virtualization and container application stacks on top of the appliance, then benchmarks with FIO/vdbench against your latency and IOPS targets prior to handoff.
Custom-Built to Your Workload
Every IIS Lightbits Appliance starts from the same validated architecture and is configured in an ISO 9001 Certified Integration Center.
| Decision Point | Options IIS Configures |
|---|---|
| Compute Platform | Lenovo ThinkSystem servers (key hardware solution); HPE or Dell reference architectures available on request |
| Node Count | Start at 4 nodes; scale linearly as throughput demand grows |
| Drive Tier | Performance NVMe for latency-sensitive tiers, capacity NVMe for bulk block workloads |
| Replica Policy | 1, 2 (Elastic RAID), or 3 full replicas, set per volume |
| Network | 25GbE or 100GbE NVMe/TCP, sized to node count and workload |
| Application Stack | Virtualization (VMware, OpenShift Virtualization) or container platforms (Kubernetes/OpenShift), implemented and customized by IIS |
| Orchestration | Standalone LightOS management, or full OpenShift/Kubernetes StorageClass integration |
| Automation | Optional Ansible Automation Platform content for provisioning and day-2 operations |
| Validation | FIO/vdbench benchmarking and induced-failure testing against your latency & IOPS SLA |
How the Build Process Works
Workload Assessment
IIS reviews current I/O profile and defines target IOPS, latency, and capacity.
Configuration & Assembly
Hardware BOM is selected, assembled, and LightOS is installed with the agreed replica and QoS policy.
Staging & Validation
Cluster is benchmarked with FIO/vdbench, failover is tested, and automation content is wired in at IIS's facility.
Deployment & Enablement
Appliance ships fully tested; IIS trains your team on monitoring, troubleshooting, and day-2 operations.
Ready to size your IIS Lightbits Appliance?
Tell us your current environment and performance targets — IIS will model the configuration and ROI.
