Red Hat OpenShift Lightspeed is a generative AI-powered virtual assistant for the OpenShift Container Platform. It uses a natural-language interface to answer user questions, troubleshoot issues, and provide guidance on using OpenShift. In this blog post, we will discuss OpenShift Lightspeed's features, requirements, use cases and limitations.
Table of Contents
What is OpenShift Lightspeed?
OpenShift Lightspeed is designed to simplify the OpenShift user experience by providing intelligent assistance through a natural language interface within the OpenShift web console.
It aims to improve user productivity and efficiency by offering guidance, troubleshooting assistance and knowledge based on Red Hat's extensive expertise in hybrid cloud application management.
It is important to note that Lightspeed may share user input with third-party LLM providers like OpenAI, Azure OpenAI, or WatsonX.
It is currently in Developer Preview. This means it is not production-ready and users should not use it for business-critical workloads.
Key Features and Functionality
- Natural Language Interface: Interact with OpenShift Lightspeed using simple English questions and commands.
- Troubleshooting and Guidance: Receive step-by-step instructions and solutions to OpenShift-related issues, such as installing operators or scaling pods.
- Cluster Resource Insights: Obtain information about your cluster resources through commands provided by Lightspeed. For instance, you can ask how many pods are running in a specific namespace.
- Documentation Access: Access relevant official OpenShift documentation links directly from Lightspeed's responses for more in-depth information.
- Object Analysis: Submit cluster objects, including YAML files, logs and events, to Lightspeed for analysis and insights.
How to Use OpenShift Lightspeed
OpenShift Lightspeed is a generative AI-powered virtual assistant integrated into Red Hat OpenShift. It's designed to help users learn and work with OpenShift more efficiently.
OpenShift Lightspeed has a natural-language interface in the OpenShift web console where users can ask questions related to OpenShift in English.
For example, users can ask questions like "How to install the Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization operator?" or "how to scale a pod automatically".
OpenShift Lightspeed will provide step-by-step guidance, such as instructions on how to scale pods automatically or the YAML file needed to get started.
While OpenShift Lightspeed cannot interact directly with the cluster, it can provide commands that users can run to achieve their goals. For example, if a user wants to know the number of pods running in a particular namespace, OpenShift Lightspeed can provide the command to find that information.
It also provides links to official documentation for users who want to learn more.
Requirements for Using OpenShift Lightspeed
To use OpenShift Lightspeed, you need the following:
- OpenShift Cluster: A Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform cluster version 4.15 or later running on x86 hardware is required.
- Internet Connectivity: The cluster must be connected to the internet and have telemetry enabled for the developer preview release.
- LLM Subscription: A trial or paid subscription to a supported Large Language Model (LLM) provider is necessary for API access to completions and inferences. The supported providers include:
- OpenAI
- Azure OpenAI
- WatsonX
While OpenShift Lightspeed primarily supports SaaS LLM providers, it's worth noting that connecting to self-hosted or self-managed model servers claiming OpenAI API compatibility might be possible but is untested and unsupported by Red Hat.
You can download the OpenShift Lightspeed operator in the Operator Hub, and documentation is available online.
Data Usage and Privacy Considerations
OpenShift Lightspeed collects user interactions, including chat messages and feedback, which may contain sensitive information about your OpenShift cluster and resources.
Key Points Regarding Data Usage:
- Limited Filtering and Redaction: The developer preview release has limited capabilities to filter or redact sensitive information before sending it to the LLM provider. Users are advised not to enter any data they do not want to share.
- Data Usage Agreement: By using OpenShift Lightspeed, users agree to allow Red Hat to utilise all messages exchanged with the LLM provider for any purpose.
- Transcript Collection: Complete conversation transcripts, including user queries, messages sent to the LLM provider and the LLM's responses, are temporarily logged and sent to Red Hat every two hours.
- Feedback Collection: User feedback, including the feedback score, text feedback, user query and LLM response, is collected and sent to Red Hat.
- Data Security and Access: Transcript and feedback data is handled using the Red Hat Insights system's backend, subject to its security policies and access restrictions.
- Data Deletion Request: Users can request the deletion of their data at the end of the developer preview period by contacting Red Hat.
OpenShift Lightspeed is in its Early Stage
It is important to emphasise that OpenShift Lightspeed is currently a Developer Preview release. This means:
- Not Production-Ready: It is not intended for production or business-critical workloads.
- Limited Support: Red Hat does not offer formal support for developer preview features.
- Potential for Change: Features and functionality are subject to change or removal without notice.
Conclusion
Red Hat OpenShift Lightspeed is an innovative generative AI application to enhance the OpenShift user experience. While still in its early stages of development, it offers promising capabilities to streamline OpenShift operations, troubleshoot issues and accelerate user learning.
As OpenShift Lightspeed progresses beyond the developer preview phase, it will be interesting to witness its evolution and the full potential it unlocks for OpenShift users.
Reference and Image Sources:
