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Say Hello to Rackspace Cloud Drive & Rackspace Server Backup

Nov 17th, 2009 in Company News, Product Enhancements by Cameron Nouri

Every day, Rackspace customers experience the benefits of having their IT in the cloud. By entrusting their IT to our team of experts, our customers are able to focus on their core business, instead of being distracted by IT headaches. We love hearing from our customers and how happy they are with us and our Fanatical Support®.

So, we’re particularly excited to announce the launch of two new Apps designed to help businesses work even more efficiently. With Rackspace Cloud Drive and Rackspace Server Backup, businesses can now organize, backup, and share their files in the cloud—securely, and backed by our 24×7x365 Fanatical Support. Here are the details:

Rackspace Cloud Drive is essentially an online hard drive—a hard drive that is in the cloud. Your Cloud Drive allows you to access and store files online, via a network drive on your computer. It works across Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems without any additional hardware. Yet the Cloud Drive offers more than just online file storage, online file backup, and online file sharing—with Rackspace Cloud Drive, you get access to powerful features that help you take advantage of the cloud:

Store and share files between other employees and/or team members
Synchronize folders across one or more computers
Use Rackspace Team Sync to ensure that team members are always working with the most recent version of a file
Set up automatic backups of your data to the Rackspace Cloud and easily restore that data in the event of a hardware failure
Secure your data with built-in AES-256 encryption, using a key controlled by the user

Get Rackspace Cloud Drive for $4/user/month, which includes 10 GB of storage space in the cloud. If you are a current customer, you can have your administrator add users via the Upgrade section in the Control Panel. If you are not a customer yet, you can learn more and sign up online.

Rackspace Server Backup enables you to automatically backup your Windows or Linux based server data to the cloud. Chances are, if you have a server in your closet, you also have backups running on that server already, most likely with a tape backup. Every few days or couple of weeks you have to go into the server closet and switch out the old tape for a new tape. Sound familiar? It can be a painful, manual process.

Using Rackspace Server Backup, you can toss all those tapes out and not have to worry about your server backups or data backup software anymore.

You can get Rackspace Server Backup for $5/server/month, which includes 10GB of storage space in the cloud. If you are a current customer, you can have your administrator add Rackspace Server Backup licenses via the Upgrade section in the Control Panel. If you are not a customer yet, you can learn more and sign up online.

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Does your company deliver great service? We want to recognize you!

Nov 12th, 2009 in Company News by Cameron Nouri

Here at Rackspace, we’ve built a reputation based on service, known to our customers as Fanatical Support®, our anytime, anywhere, any way approach to customer service. And we know we’re not the only ones who put customer needs first. That’s why we created The FANATI in 2007 to recognize one of our customers for valuing customer service as much as we do.

For three years now, Rackspace has awarded The FANATI to the one customer who best demonstrates ‘Fanatical Support’ when it comes to their customers. And this year is no different.

We are now accepting applications for the 2009 FANATI® Award for Outstanding Customer Service.

This year we are introducing a new formation for the application. No longer is it just a written application answering a bunch of questions. This year we want to make it personal and with a touch of creativity. That is why we are only accepting video applications! All our customers need to do is create a short (less than five minutes) video explaining what they do and how they exemplify outstanding customer service. It should be interesting none the less.

So if you’re a customer, and you think your customer service is pretty good…award winning even…then we would love to hear from you.

You can learn more and apply for The FANATI through our online application.

Have any questions? Leave us a comment below with your question and we’ll be sure to answer them.

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Introducing… the Rackspace Rescue Plan for Zimbra Customers

Nov 10th, 2009 in Company News, Email & Apps Industry by Cameron Nouri

Recently it was reported that Yahoo is looking to sell Zimbra, a software development company focused on building open-source email and collaboration software—an attempt at a Microsoft Exchange alternative, if you will. Many look at this as a good move for Yahoo, as they look to focus on their core strategy as a media company.

But what does this mean for Zimbra’s 50 million users and customers? For those facing uncertainty, we’d like to offer some help. So today, we are introducing The Rackspace Rescue Plan for Zimbra customers, and we will be running with this until the fate of Zimbra is decided. We want to make it easy to move to Rackspace email services, for those who might be interested in moving off Zimbra’s platform.

Here’s what we are offering with our Rescue Plan:

Free Microsoft Exchange or Rackspace Email for three months
Free email migration performed by our migration experts
Fanatical Support® around the clock, as always

Interested in taking advantage of this opportunity? Give us a call, email us, or chat with us and let us know you’d like to take advantage of our Rescue Plan. We will walk you through all the steps to make this a painless transition and help you find some relief during this uncertain time.

The Fine Print

Rackspace will waive the monthly fee for three months for each Microsoft Exchange or Rackspace Email mailbox that is purchased as a part of this promotion. Customers will be asked to submit a form, along with proof that your domain was using Zimbra (i.e., a pdf/screenshot of a Zimbra account, a receipt or invoice for service). And of course, we reserve the right to end this promotion at any time.

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Learn About the Facts & Fiction of Hosted Email

Nov 9th, 2009 in Email & Apps Industry by Cameron Nouri

We are excited to partner up with the team over at Spiceworks to put on a webinar focused on the truth behind hosted email. The webinar is scheduled for Tuesday, November 17, 2009 from 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM CST. This is meant to be an informative session that will aim to present objective information and data to help those out there who are trying to sort through the facts behind hosted email.

You can learn more about the webinar and sign up for it online.

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[Launch] Self-Service Email Migrations Performed In the Cloud

Nov 4th, 2009 in Product Enhancements by Cameron Nouri

We’re always looking for ways to make it easier for businesses to move into the cloud. That’s why we’re proud to announce our new do-it-yourself Migration App.

With the Migration App, customers can copy their email data from their previous email servers to our Rackspace Email or Microsoft Exchange messaging platforms. The Migration App is located in the customer Control Panel and is completely self-service, walking the customer through the process step-by-step.

Here are some highlights:

Migrate from your own internal email servers or from other hosted servers.
Migrate from Exchange servers and POP/IMAP servers. We’ve even added settings for popular email services that we see customers migrating from, such as GoDaddy.
Create multiple migrations, including customized migrations for specifics sets of mailboxes.
Schedule your migration for a date and time that work best for you.
When the migration begins, email data will begin transferring automatically, without any additional effort on your part.
View migration progress online and receive email alerts.
Save migration details, so that you can review the migration report at any time.

Our Migration App will guide you through the process and includes helpful information along the way. And, of course, our Fanatical Support® team is here 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, if you need any help.

Please note, if your business has advanced requirements that require a manual migration, our dedicated transition team can build a custom migration plan and manage the entire process for you. Please contact us to learn more.

Want to get started?

For current customers, the Migration App can be accessed within our Control Panel, under Domains -> Tools -> Migrations.

If you are not a current customer, what are you waiting for? Isn’t it time for your business to get in the cloud?

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One Email Outage Pays for a Year of Rackspace Email Hosting

Oct 8th, 2009 in Case Studies by Cameron Nouri

Steven Ng, Vice President of Professional Services for Acumetrics came to Rackspace after a hard drive failure took their email down for a week and reallocated Steven’s time from billable work to fixing email. Due to a failed backup, they also lost a week’s worth of email. By outsourcing their email to Rackspace, they now have dedicated support when they have email issues from our team of email experts.

According to Steven, “We lost enough time and money from one outage to pay for Rackspace hosting service for a year.” When they experienced a recent outage, they reviewed our resolution report and determined, “that issue would have taken us hours to diagnose and even longer to fix.” Outsourcing allows Steven to focus on growing their business while we worry about making sure his email is operational.

According to a report by Osterman Research there’s a 72% chance you’ll experience an unplanned email outage this year per. With each outage, businesses can expect an average of 62 hours of downtime. The report also shows that 41% of unplanned outages are due to technological issues: software configuration errors, outdated drives, or HVAC issues. Hardware failures alone accounted for over a quarter of unplanned outages. Even a short outage can have long-term consequence, like missing important customer communication, total loss of email data, and lost productivity.

With all the things that can go wrong with email, putting it in the hands of email experts makes sense. Rackspace’s email infrastructure is built on a redundant, clustered server environment with automatic failover measures.

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Portal Systems Saves 300 Hours a Year with Rackspace

Sep 28th, 2009 in Case Studies by Cameron Nouri

Portal Systems, a network solutions firm, uses the Rackspace Reseller Program to add value and reduce complexity for their clients. The Northern Virginia-based company currently manages about 100 clients under the reseller plan. “We were all ready managing the email accounts for our clients. As a reseller, we could do it all from one control panel without having to log in and out of the individual accounts,” says David Korte, Managing Partner of Portal Systems.

Rackspace resellers also enjoy volume pricing, API integration options, and marketing support without major equipment investments or huge upfront fees. With low monthly minimums and the option of Microsoft Exchange, Rackspace Email, or both, resellers can create a competitively priced and compelling offer to their customers. For David, that means his firm can work with smaller companies who need a few mailboxes and seamlessly scale to meet the needs of large clients needing hundreds of mailboxes.

Since using Rackspace for their clients’ email needs, Portal Systems has also seen the value of email hosting and moved their in-house email to Rackspace, returning the over 300 hours a year they were spending on email maintenance to more mission-critical activities. Read the Portal Systems case study to find out more about their experience with Rackspace, both as a reseller and customer. Visit the Rackspace Reseller Program page for more information on becoming a reseller.

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Rackspace Rescues MariTool from Deliverability Issues

Sep 17th, 2009 in Case Studies by Cameron Nouri

To thwart spam, email providers use aggregated blacklists to determine whether to deliver an email to the inbox or the spam folder, or reject it completely. The blacklist is a reference point for IP addresses identified as sending spam. The list is compiled from IP address traffic patterns and user feedback. Some providers allow their customers to participate in activities that increase the likelihood of winding up on a blacklist, like sending large volumes of email or repeatedly sending unsolicited email for marketing purposes.

Tom Fetcho, Project Manager at MariTool, was with an email provider who was blacklisted. “Communication is important in a web-based business and we feared losing customers because our emails weren’t getting to the inbox,” says Tom. Confidence in deliverability was his main concern, but email landing in the spam folder also threatened their professional image. “No one checks the spam folder, so either they’d think we didn’t respond or we’d have to ask them to check their spam folder, which makes us appear unprofessional,” explains Tom.

At Rackspace, we enforce strict policies to protect the reputation of our IP addresses and ensure deliverability of our customers’ email. MariTool can now be confident that their email isn’t mingling with spam in the spam folder; instead, their email gets the attention it deserves in the inbox.

Read the full MariTool case study to find out how Rackspace rescued their email from deliverability and accessibility issues with another provider.

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Ben Hubbard Named Top 20 Under 40

Sep 3rd, 2009 in Company News by Cameron Nouri

Congratulations to our Director of Internal Operations here at Rackspace Email & Apps, Ben Hubbard, who last week was named one of the top 20 business leaders under the age of 40 in central and southwest Virginia by the Blue Ridge Business Journal. You can check out the online version here. Ben’s profile is on page 14.

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Help Us Get to SXSW 2010

Aug 27th, 2009 in General by Cameron Nouri

South-by-Southwest (aka SXSW) happens to be where one of the biggest parties happens for the web technology industry. Each year tens of thousands of people from around the world end up taking over Austin, TX for a few weeks to celebrate music, film, and emerging technology.

Each year they open up the conference to allow attendees to present their own panels or presentations to the masses. This year Rackspace has submitted 11 potential topics and we need your help to get in. Right now SXSW has opened up the Panel Picker for 2010 which allows anyone to vote on topics they would like to see presented at the conference.

You can check out the topics that we have submitted and vote on the ones you would like to see presented. You will need to sign up for an account to vote, but its a painless process. You can also check out and vote on other Interactive Panels, Music and Film Events.

Please note voting closes on September 4th, 2009.

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