CIQ Stratum Pro
Kubernetes for the AI era
One signed file installs and upgrades the cluster, provides fleet management and lets AI agents work within limits you set.
Prefer to start with the open source engine? Download CIQ Stratum Kubernetes Engine
Trusted in production by national laboratories, research institutions, and global enterprises
Every AI workload adds a cluster, and your team can’t keep pace.
Clusters multiply fast
Every team stands up its own cluster. Then GPU clusters land beside the fleet.
Upgrades keep slipping
Every cluster runs many components on separate releases. Each upgrade is a risk, so it waits.
AI clusters split off
GPU clusters end up with separate tools and a separate vendor to manage.
It doesn't need to be this complicated.
CIQ Stratum Kubernetes Engine (SKE) ships Kubernetes as one tested, signed binary. CIQ Stratum Pro manages every SKE cluster from one view.
What's in SKE and CIQ Stratum Pro
Upgrades roll through the cluster with health gates. Kubernetes, etcd, containerd, runc, and kube-vip are pinned and tested together, so there's nothing to assemble.
Groups map to roles. Clusters connect outbound only, so no inbound port is opened. A curated app catalog installs ingress-nginx, cert-manager, and Kueue.
Agents get typed tools for pods, logs, nodes, and events. Write and destructive tools don't exist for them until you turn those tiers on, and Secrets never come back.
With CIQ Stratum Pro, apply the CIS profile at install, then run a check that reports pass and fail per control.
Every component is built from an unmodified upstream source, the same way CIQ builds Rocky Linux from CIQ, Warewulf, and Apptainer.
How SKE works
One signed file carries what a working cluster needs, down to the web UI.
- Kubernetes
- etcd
- containerd
- runc
- Cilium
- kube-vip
- CoreDNS
- local-path
- kubectl
- etcdctl
- HelmChart operator
- Web console
- MCP server
Bring up the first node and you land in a web console, with networking, storage, DNS, the command line, and an MCP server for your AI agents already in place. Each component is picked and pinned to work with the rest, so there is nothing to add before the cluster is ready for your AI agents.
- Join more nodes with a token from the first one, using the same file.
- Upgrade, snapshot, and rotate certificates from the same file, with health gates on every upgrade.
- Open the web console on any node to browse workloads, read logs, and open a shell. You see what your own access allows.
- Connect AI agents to the built-in MCP server, read-only until you widen it.
- Register your clusters with CIQ Stratum Pro to see them all in one window.
Technical specifications
SKE is open source. CIQ Stratum Pro adds fleet management, single sign-on, the app catalog, the CIS profile, and support.
| Host operating systems | Enterprise Linux 9 or later, including Rocky Linux, RLC Pro, RLC Pro AI, and RLC Pro Hardened |
|---|---|
| Architectures | amd64 and arm64 |
| Delivery | One signed file carrying 12 component binaries and 7 container images |
| Components | Kubernetes, etcd, containerd, runc, kube-vip, Cilium, CoreDNS, local-path storage, Helm |
| Lifecycle | Install, join, health-gated rolling upgrades, etcd snapshots with S3 offload, restore |
| Supply chain | Keyless cosign signature, SPDX SBOM per architecture, build provenance file |
| Interfaces | Built-in WebUI, Agentic access, Fleet Management UI and App Catalog (CIQ Stratum Pro) |
| MCP server for AI agents | Built into the binary as stratum mcp, CIQ's own code with no third-party MCP server; read-only by default; write and destructive tiers each enabled at start; typed tools, no command passthrough; results fenced as untrusted data against prompt injection; refuses Secret reads and RBAC writes at every tier |
| Fleet (CIQ Stratum Pro) | Hub with REST API and dashboard; outbound-only agent; OIDC single sign-on with admin and viewer roles |
| Hardening (CIQ Stratum Pro) | CIS profile at install with a per-control pass and fail report |
Editions
Start with the open source engine. Add CIQ Stratum Pro when you run more than one cluster or need CIQ support.
List pricing is $1,800 per node per year with Standard support and $2,700 per node per year with Premium support.
Supported by the team behind Rocky Linux from CIQ
CIQ Stratum Pro includes CIQ support. Run RLC Pro underneath, and one vendor covers both the OS and the cluster.
Frequently asked questions
CIQ Stratum Pro is Kubernetes for the AI era. It's the commercial version built on CIQ Stratum Kubernetes Engine (SKE), an engine that installs, joins, upgrades, and snapshots a cluster from one signed binary, with a built-in dashboard and a built-in MCP server for AI agents. CIQ Stratum Pro adds a fleet manager across every SKE cluster, single sign-on through your identity provider, an app catalog, the CIS profile, and CIQ support. Both come from the team behind Rocky Linux, Fuzzball, Warewulf, and Apptainer.
It usually means two things: AI agents running as workloads on a cluster, and AI agents operating the cluster itself. The second is the harder part, because an agent with cluster access can do real damage. The MCP server built into CIQ Stratum Pro is designed for it. The server starts read-only, hides tools above the tier you enable, and refuses to return Secrets at any tier.
Pick one where an agent can work on the cluster under rules you set. CIQ Stratum Pro is built for AI agents: its MCP server ships in CIQ Stratum Kubernetes Engine (SKE), the engine it's built on, and starts read-only. It also runs on RLC Pro AI hosts, and CIQ Stratum Pro puts your GPU clusters and your general fleet in one view. None of this is an AI certification.
Start it read-only and widen access on purpose. On CIQ Stratum Pro, stratum mcp offers read tools by default. Write tools (apply, scale, snapshot) and destructive tools (upgrade, restore, uninstall) only exist for the agent when you start the server with them. Every result comes back marked as untrusted data, which helps the model treat text planted in a pod log as data rather than instructions. Kubernetes RBAC is still the hard boundary for the tools that use the agent's credential, so give it the narrowest role that works; the node-administration tools run with the node's own credentials, so keep that tier off unless a person is watching.
CIQ Stratum Pro does. The Model Context Protocol (MCP) server is part of CIQ Stratum Kubernetes Engine (SKE), the engine CIQ Stratum Pro is built on, and written by CIQ, so there's no third-party MCP server to install. Start it with stratum mcp.
On CIQ Stratum Pro, the MCP server won't return a Secret at any tier, even when its credential has cluster-admin rights. It also refuses to write RBAC rules. Leave Secrets out of the agent's role as well, so the protection holds even if that refusal ever changes.
CIQ Stratum Pro is a commercial product built on open source. CIQ Stratum Kubernetes Engine (SKE), the engine it's built on, is open source under Apache 2.0, with a public repository and documentation that needs no login. CIQ Stratum Pro, which adds fleet management, single sign-on, and CIQ support, is a subscription.
Download the CIQ Stratum Kubernetes Engine (SKE) binary, then run stratum up. Kubernetes, etcd, containerd, runc, and kube-vip come pinned and tested together inside it, so there's nothing to assemble. Join more nodes with the same binary.
Any Enterprise Linux 9 or later, including Rocky Linux, RLC Pro, RLC Pro AI, and RLC Pro Hardened, on amd64 and arm64. Windows nodes aren't offered at launch.
Other clusters can register with CIQ Stratum Pro by kubeconfig today. Validated management of other clusters, including RKE2, follows in a later release.
CIQ Stratum Kubernetes Engine (SKE), the engine CIQ Stratum Pro is built on, is building toward CNCF conformance. FIPS and STIG aren't offered at launch. CIQ Stratum Pro applies a CIS profile at install and reports pass and fail for each control.
