Intel in Strategic LinkUp with Cloud Storage Startup Lightbits Labs

Intel announced last week that it has formed a strategic partnership with cloud storage startup Lightbits Labs in which the Israeli company will receive an investment from Intel Capital along with technical co-engineering and go-to-market collaboration with the chip manufacturer.

Intel said the step is aimed at propelling development of storage solutions for data center operators who seek improved total-cost-of-ownership due to stranded disk capacity and performance.

Lightbits’ LightOS disaggregated software-defined storage solution delivers high-performance shared storage across servers while providing high availability and read-and-write management designed to maximize the value of flash-based storage. LightOS provides customers with vastly improved storage efficiency and reduces underutilization while maintaining compatibility with existing infrastructure without compromising performance and simplicity. The solution is being fully optimized for Intel hardware, according to a press release.

“Intel is an industry leader with deep expertise in data center technologies, cutting-edge products, global sales prowess and an impressive ecosystem,” said Eran Kirzner, Lightbits Labs CEO and co-founder. “We are excited to partner with Intel Corporation, and our joint solutions will set the bar for generating new ROI metrics for enterprise and cloud customers.”

Remi El-Ouazzane, vice president and Data Platforms Group chief strategy and business development officer at Intel, said: “The data center is being transformed, with disaggregation and composability of resources being essential to meet the efficiency requirements needed to address the explosion of data. Our differentiated hardware capabilities coupled with Lightbits innovative NVMe over Fabrics software gives our joint customers an exceptional economic solution to address this strategic inflection point.”

Lightbits Labs, which was founded in 2016, helped develop the industry’s first non-volatile memory express/transmission control protocol (NVMe/TCP) storage solution. To date, the company has raised over $50 million from investors.