One of the questions our customers ask is “How do I move to the open cloud to take advantage of all its great features?” Rackspace wants this to be easy for our customers. Our Cloud Control Panel allows customers to create both first generation Cloud Servers and next generation Cloud Servers with just a few button clicks. And, now, with Rackspace snapshot migration you can convert your first generation servers to next generation servers. For compatible base images, Rackspace now has a feature that allows customers to take snapshots of their first generation servers and create new next generation servers from those snapshots. This allows customers to make exact copies of their first generation servers, but run them on the open cloud platform as next generation servers powered by OpenStack.

The process is easy as 1, 2, 3 and done.

1. Select the first generation server that you want to take a snapshot image of from the Cloud Control Panel, click on the gear menu and select the “Create Image” command.
2. For compatible base images select the “next generation Cloud Server Image” radio button and click the “Create Image” button. This does the needed conversions in the background and saves the image as a next generation server image in your saved images area.
3. You can now create a new next generation server from the Cloud Control Panel  by clicking the “Create Server” button and then select the image you created from your saved images.

That is all it takes, and you are done.

A more detailed Knowledge Center article is available for customers wanting to make the jump to the open cloud.

Rackspace is committed to the open cloud and is excited to have our customers start using it. Hopefully the snapshot migration feature will make it even easier for our customers to make the jump to the open cloud and transition from our first generation servers to our next generation servers powered by OpenStack.