PROGRESS THROUGH 2012

There were numerous upgrades and new capabilities added to Cloud Sites in the first part of the year.

Upgraded platform to address customer requests: In addition to our SAT datacenter migration, we launched PHP 5.3, .NET 4.0, MySQL 5.1 and Microsoft SQL Server 2012. We also added DNS management updates and SSL Certificate management in the control panel, which improved the platforms’ stability and performance, and provided customers with additional self-service functionality.

Use Cloud Databases on Cloud Sites: Cloud Sites users who want the performance benefits of a dedicated database instance can use Cloud Databases today. Please note that to enable all of the latest advanced features and capabilities, all management of Cloud Databases is done through the next generation Control Panel.

No Charge for bandwidth within datacenter: Cloud Sites has just enabled ServiceNet connectivity to other Rackspace Cloud products within the same datacenter. This means the end to bandwidth fees to and from other Rackspace products within the same datacenter.

COMING IN 2012

WordPress Installer: Many of our customer’s host hundreds of WordPress Sites on Cloud Sites. Installing large numbers of WordPress sites is time consuming and difficult, so we will offer a new feature to quickly install WordPress on Cloud Sites via our control panel. The WordPress Installer is expected to be part of the Cloud Sites add site process early in the fourth quarter of 2012.

Simplified control panel: There will be several control panel enhancements to improve the customer experience and speed our entry into the new Rackspace Cloud Control Panel. These improvements include the simplification of processes related to adding sites, database management and usage reporting.

A major part of this control panel simplification is the removal of client hosting plans, client products and client messaging. You will still be able to add Sites to your primary account or to your sub-accounts (clients) from within the control panel.

• Client Hosting Plans – The client hosting plan selection required all customers to select an amount of resources for each of their sites or their clients’ sites, primarily for billing purposes. This feature did not limit or restrict what could be consumed. Requiring a plan selection is an unnecessary step that provided little value and was often confusing and misleading to customers. This change does not remove any functionality. Your clients can still consume the resources that they need, when they need them.

• Client Products and Messaging – These features were related to client billing, which is no longer a portion of the Cloud Sites offering.

Technology Improvements: PHP 5.4 and .NET 4.5 will launch in the fourth quarter. These technologies will live alongside PHP 5.3 and .NET 4.0 for a significant period of time so there is no immediate requirement to migrate to the newer versions. Microsoft Server 2012 will accompany the release of .NET 4.5.

Technology Upgrades: The upgrade from PHP 5.2 to PHP 5.3 has been extended to August 31. Sites will upgrade to PHP 5.3 after August 31. Customers can manually upgrade sites to PHP 5.3 using the steps detailed in this article, but we encourage our customers to allow us to do the upgrade for you. Note that if you do perform the upgrade yourself, you will be unable to revert back to PHP 5.2. The upgrade for databases, including MySQL 5.0 to 5.1 and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 to Microsoft SQL Server 2012, will begin in January 2013.

COMING IN 2013

Access to API: We are working on public access to the API and expect this to be ready in 2013. This is a big change and it requires significant upgrades in our existing architecture. We are making many of the above changes to prepare us for this public API launch. Thank you for your patience.

Cloud Sites in the new Cloud Control Panel: Cloud Sites is preparing for integration into the next generation Rackspace Control Panel. Please continue to access Sites through the existing cloud control panel as we prepare Cloud Sites for the integration. We will also have a single sign-on to direct customers between the new Cloud Control Panel and the Sites control panel for easy maneuvering across interfaces.

Thank you for your dedication to Cloud Sites and for all of your feedback. Please let us know what more you would like to see in Rackspace Cloud Sites through our product feedback forum. Keep an eye out for even more exciting changes to come!

First, Cloud Load Balancers now provides support for Source IP session persistence for non-HTTP load balancers. Session persistence, also referred to as stickiness, ensures that all requests for a user session are sent to the same backend node. This new feature, in conjunction with the existing capability for HTTP protocols, allows session persistence to be enabled for all protocols that are supported by Cloud Load Balancer.

Second, we’ve added the SFTP protocol, which is selectable when creating or modifying a Cloud Load Balancer. SFTP is the SSH File Transfer Protocol, and is an established network protocol for ensuring secure file transfers.  This feature is available in the control panel today.

And third, we’ve added content caching, which improves the performance of a web site by temporarily storing data that was recently accessed. This feature will increase the speed and user experience for recurring sessions.

We are excited about this release and feel this will provide additional value to your cloud load balancing experience.

For more information on how to use the new features available in our Cloud Load Balancers API or to check our latest release notes, please refer to the Rackspace Cloud Load Balancers Product Documentation page.  If you have suggestions on how we can improve this offering further, please let us know through our product feedback site.

UPDATE: We have heard requests to extend the PHP 5.2 upgrade and are postponing this upgrade date for one month, moving from July 31 to August 31. PHP 5.2 was removed as a selectable technology option in June, and sites will be upgraded to PHP 5.3 beginning after August 31. Please ensure that your application or CMS solution is running the latest PHP 5.3 compatible version to avoid issues in this upgrade. We encourage users to validate that their sites are ready for PHP 5.3 prior to this upgrade in September. We will be contacting customers with test links to assist in this validation. Customers can manually upgrade sites to PHP 5.3 using the steps detailed in this article, but we encourage users to allow us to do the upgrade for you. Note that if you do the upgrade yourself, you will be unable to revert back to PHP 5.2.

First and foremost, thank you for being a Cloud Sites customer. Rackspace Cloud Sites celebrated its sixth birthday this past February. To honor the occasion, we’d like to take you on a journey through where Cloud Sites has been, where it is now and where it’s headed.

PAST

In six years, we have grown with our customers and learned a lot. Like any other new and innovative product in the market, Cloud Sites had its growth challenges. We want to thank all of our customers for not only sticking with us, but also for helping us evolve the product into what it is today. Currently more than 400,000 sites that handle more than 500 billion web requests per year reside on Cloud Sites. Altogether, this makes Cloud Sites one of the largest web properties in the world! Take a look at the numbers in the Cloud Sites infographic.

PRESENT

Even after six years we know there is so much more to achieve. We are laser-focused on customer feedback and very excited about the future of Cloud Sites. Here’s a recap of some of the things that we have done over the last few months:

• We retired our first data center and migrated to a state-of-the-art facility with an improved infrastructure, resulting in better throughput, uptime and performance for customers’ websites. And we did this while continually delivering 99.9 percent uptime. This boost helps Cloud Sites customers, such as gdgt.com, when they expect a traffic onslaught.
• PHP 5.3 was launched in early April and .NET 4.0 was made available through the control panel.
• We improved DNS management in the control panel, including support for TXT, SRV and AAAA records.
• MySQL administration tools were updated.
• We made reliability improvements in the provisioning process
• All newly provisioned MySQL databases in Cloud Sites are now MySQL 5.1. You can utilize the latest benefits and security updates.
• MS SQL 2012 databases have also been released on Cloud Sites. Customers can enjoy the newest capabilities and benefits from MS SQL. Users can continue to deploy MS SQL 2008 until August 30th.

FUTURE

Cloud Sites has evolved over time, fueled by customer needs, technologies and market trends. And that evolution will continue.

You will see regular releases of features and updates that will add value to your hosting experience. We are excited to share some of the many upcoming features and changes that will be coming soon. Here’s a peek into things that you can expect in the near future:

• Cloud Databases will be an optional feature that Cloud Sites customers who require a high-performance and more configurable database hosting technology can consume. This feature is expected to launch in Q3 2012 and will be handled on the Rackspace ServiceNet network.
• MySQL 5.0 Migration – Customers can choose to self-migrate to 5.1 today. After August 31, users who have not migrated will be automatically migrated during a scheduled maintenance window. Reference the MySQL migration document for more information.
• PHP 5.2 will be removed as a technology option in June, and all sites will be migrated to PHP 5.3 beginning on July 31.  Please ensure that your application or CMS solution is running the latest PHP 5.3 compatible version to avoid issues in this migration. Customers can seamlessly self-migrate to PHP 5.3 by selecting the PHP 5.3 technology option from the Features page of the control panel. We highly encourage users to do this before automated migrations begin in August.
• PHP 5.4 is expected to be available in Q3.
• .NET4.5 is expected to be available in Q4.
• The Control Panel will continually be updated to make the site creation and management process more seamless.

We see an even brighter future for the Cloud Sites product. Thank you for your dedication to Cloud Sites and for all of your feedback. Please continue to let us know what more you would like to see in the product through our product feedback forum.

We are very excited for the future of Cloud Sites. Keep an eye out for even more changes to come!

Want to read more about Cloud Sites and how it came to be? Check out our Cloud Founders series, where we interview Rackspace cloud founders Jonathan Bryce and Todd Morey about Cloud Sites’ beginnings.

First, Cloud Load Balancers now allows users to specify primary and secondary nodes for managing their Load Balancers. If there is a problem with your primary node, traffic will be routed seamlessly to the secondary node so there is no downtime.

Next, we’ve added new Protocol offerings including TCP Client-First, UDP and MySQL traffic protocols.  These protocols are selectable when creating or modifying a Cloud Load Balancer

We’ve also updated the ability to add Cloud Databases Domain Names, as they can now load balance their API created Cloud Databases. And we’re now also providing the ability to assign metadata to each Cloud Load Balancer.

For more information on how to use the new features available in our API, please refer to the Cloud Load Balancers API Developer Guide.

And gdgt.com is not alone. There are a host of examples that illustrate why web agencies turn to the Cloud Sites website hosting platform for scalability and reliability. Cloud Sites has really made a difference to our customers and remains an integral part of Rackspace’s product portfolio. More Cloud Sites data and statistics are available in this infographic, which takes a by-the-numbers look at Cloud Sites.

With that in mind, we’re excited to announce that Rackspace has added several new and long-awaited features to Cloud Sites, enhancements that make it easier to leverage PHP and .NET; manage DNS; and improve provisioning.

New Technologies: PHP 5.3 & .NET 4.0

First, Cloud Sites now supports PHP 5.3 with an updated and modern set of extensions.  This upgrade to PHP lets users take advantage of new features in the framework such as namespaces, lambda functions and closures, along with numerous performance improvements over PHP 5.2.

Cloud Sites users are able to create new sites leveraging PHP 5.3 or migrate existing sites to PHP 5.3 from the control panel.

Additionally, .NET 4.0 is now available as a technology selection within the control panel.  This new feature allows users to easily upgrade to the latest version of the .NET framework in an automated fashion.

DNS Management Updates

The DNS manager of Cloud Sites is now capable of managing TXT, SRV and AAAA records.  The addition of these record types gives users full control over their DNS configuration without needing to contact support to fulfill the request.

Other Improvements

Additionally, we’ve listened to customer feedback and have made several other changes to improve the overall user experience of Cloud Sites.

We’ve added MySQL server selection, which automatically populates your MySQL server when using the phpMyAdmin MySQL web administration tool.

We’ve also improved provisioning. Several key fixes have been made that improve the reliability of alias provisioning operations that previously had a high failure rate.

This release signals greater momentum and a bright future for Cloud Sites, and we’d like to thank all of our customers for their dedication and their feedback.

Also check out our new Cloud Sites website and this Press Release for a look at where Cloud Sites is headed.

As always, we welcome your feedback on Cloud Sties and your experience with these and other features on our product feedback site.

We are happy to announce today SSL Termination is available via the API.

SSL (Secure Socket Layer) Termination

SSL termination allows our users to have their SSL traffic terminate at the Load Balancer.   Terminating SSL traffic at the load balancer provides several benefits for the customer, including:

• Centralized Certificate Management
• SSL acceleration for improved throughput
• Reduced CPU load at the application server for improved performance
• HTTP and HTTPS Session Persistence

At this time, the SSL termination feature is manageable through the API only and usage will be billed at $0.05/hr for each load balancer enabled with SSL termination, instead of the $0.015/hr standard load balancer fee. This feature will be added to the control panel in the future.

The ideal user will be running Cloud Load Balancers, have a need for SSL traffic encryption, and be familiar with the Rackspace RESTful web service APIs.  Users who wish to leverage the API should have a general understanding of the load balancing service and be familiar with:

• RESTful Web Services,
• HTTP/1.1 Conventions
• JSON and/or XML Data Serialization Formats
• ATOM Syndication Format

For more information on how to use the new features available in our Cloud Load Balancers API or to check our latest release notes, please refer to the Rackspace Cloud Load Balancers API documentation page.

Thank you for your interest in the Cloud Load Balancer product and please continue to provide feedback and how we can continue to improve this product.

Be sure to subscribe to our product and development blog for future product announcements.

Added Node Query parameter – Allows API users to provide an IP address and get back a list of load balancers where that IP is currently configured as a node. This will help users to make more informed decisions when deleting Cloud Servers or external nodes that are being used in a load balancing configuration.

Custom Error Pages for HTTP load balancers – Allows API users to apply their own custom error messaging in the event that a backend node is offline and unavailable.   Users can choose to create a custom HTML message or keep the default error message.

For more information on how to use the new features available in our API, please refer to the Rackspace Cloud Load Balancers API Developer Guide.  If you have suggestions on how we can improve this offering further, please let us know through our product feedback site.