Eliminating Need for Proprietary Hardware

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Lightbits Labs (Lightbits®), inventor of the NVMe® over TCP storage protocol and the first KV cache engine optimized for AI, today announced that its long-standing customer, Elastx, a leading European cloud service provider, has expanded and modernized its Elastx Cloud Platform (ECP) using Lightbits LightOS® software-defined block storage, adopting an all-journaling architecture that replaces specialized persistent memory (PMem) with standard NVMe SSDs. The move highlights a growing shift among organizations toward hardware-agnostic software-defined storage architectures that deliver high performance and efficiency without reliance on proprietary components.

As Elastx deploys this new architecture across its Scandinavian zones, it continues to leverage the core benefits identified during its initial 2024 implementation with Lightbits: seamless integration with OpenStack and Kubernetes, high-density NVMe storage, strong multi-tenant performance, and lean storage operations at scale. The expanded deployment supports Elastx’s transition to a fully software-defined journaling model and growing demand for high-performance workloads, real-time analytics, and AI-driven applications in the region. By leveraging Lightbits’ SSD-based journaling, the company has replaced Intel® Optane™ persistent memory (DCPMM) with standard NVMe drives for both data and write persistence.

“Using Lightbits’ software to provide our block storage services allows us to standardize on widely available commodity NVMe SSDs while providing the market-leading performance and resilience our customers expect,” said Joakim Öhman, CEO of Elastx. “It gives us the flexibility to scale and modernize our cloud platform without being constrained by proprietary hardware.”

Lightbits’ journaling capability persists writes to SSD before committing them to primary storage, delivering data protection traditionally associated with PMem—now implemented entirely in software. This approach provides robust protection against simultaneous power outages or node failures. This architectural shift enables Elastx to:

Maintain sub-millisecond latency and high throughput

Improve resilience against node and power failures

Simplify hardware procurement and reduce supply chain risk

Reduce storage TCO

Scale infrastructure using commodity hardware

“Elastx is demonstrating how modern cloud infrastructure can evolve beyond hardware dependencies,” said Keimpe Paulus, Senior Vice President of Sales at Lightbits Labs. “By transitioning to all-journaling storage, they can adapt their hardware strategy on the fly—removing bottlenecks and hardware dependencies—without ever compromising on the speed or reliability their customers depend on.”

This deployment reflects a broader industry trend: replacing proprietary infrastructure components with software-defined alternatives that run on commodity hardware, improving both cost economics and operational agility.

“The 400% rise in SSD costs impacts infrastructure planning, forcing organizations to rethink strategies and maximize storage investments. Our close collaboration with Lightbits helps customers like Elastx aggregate capacity via NVMe over TCP rather than DAS. This allows organizations to reclaim stranded SSD capacity, improve utilization, and scale efficiently using commodity components—helping them do more with less at a lower overall storage cost,” added Jos Keulers, Co-Founder and CEO at NVMestorage.com.

To learn how software-defined storage can reduce your risk to hardware supply chain volatility while improving performance and cost efficiency, visit www.lightbitslabs.com or book time to speak with a technical expert on the Lightbits team.

About Lightbits Labs

Lightbits Labs® (Lightbits) is the inventor of the NVMe over TCP storage protocol, which is natively built into its industry-leading block storage, and the first KV cache prefetch engine acceleration for AI. Lightbits data storage solutions are engineered to deliver unmatched high performance and maximum hardware efficiency for LLM inference, real-time analytics, and transactional workloads at scale. Lightbits is backed by enterprise technology leaders [Cisco Investments, Dell Technologies Capital, Intel Capital, Lenovo, and Micron] and is on a mission to deliver best-in-class, cost-efficient storage systems for performance-sensitive workloads at scale.

To learn more about Lightbits Labs, visit https://www.lightbitslabs.com/ and follow Lightbits Labs on Linkedin, X, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.

Lightbits, Lightbits Labs, and LightOS are registered trademarks of Lightbits Labs, Ltd.

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Source: Lightbits Labs