Rackspace Survey Reveals Hosting Customers Believe Virtualization is Ready for Mission-critical Applications

Performance and Security Fears Leave Hosting Customers Unwilling to Share Physical Server with Other Virtualization Customers

SAN ANTONIO — Aug. 13, 2007 — Virtualization is ready to support mission-critical applications, according to a recent customer survey conducted by managed hosting provider Rackspace® Managed Hosting. The survey revealed that 57 percent of respondents are already using virtualization for internal applications, and 72 percent of respondents are comfortable hosting mission-critical applications in a production environment on a virtualized platform. There is a great demand for leveraging the benefit of virtualization through a third-party hosting company: 71 percent of respondents would host their applications on a virtualized infrastructure with a hosting provider. However, the majority of customers are currently not comfortable utilizing a shared, virtual environment. Only 13 percent of respondents are confidently willing to share a physical server with other hosting customers, a practice common in hosting, with top concerns stemming from performance and security vulnerabilities in shared environments.

“Virtualization is making significant traction in the market; however, it is still a maturing technology. This is where Rackspace can fill in the gap by applying Fanatical Support to a solution that people are comfortable with and that will provide peace of mind in areas like performance and security,” said Nicolas Keller, director of platform products, Rackspace Managed Hosting. “The first phase of virtualization has focused on cost savings from server consolidation, but the next phase will be about infrastructure management to improve flexibility and scalability. Hosting providers and utility players, like Rackspace, that manage tens-of-thousands of customer servers, need to deliver a virtualization platform that provides fast provisioning and infrastructure agility for our customers.”

Rackspace plans to unveil a virtualization offering, which is currently in the beta process, to address the management of large-scale implementations. It will address the needs and concerns that have been revealed through this customer survey.

“We’ve been researching virtualization for a while now and wanted to make sure that our customers are ready, that the market is ready and most importantly that our offering is Fanatical Support-ready,” said Keller. “We are working thoroughly to ensure the management, high availability, performance and security pieces of our virtualization offering are in line for a successful launch by the end of this year.”

Additionally, the Rackspace survey revealed that 42 percent of respondents believe virtualization will have a fundamental impact on information technology. Although 43 percent had no preference between using open source or proprietary virtualization products, the majority of respondents use VMware.

The methodology for this research involved sending an email survey to approximately 3,000 Rackspace customers. More than 12 percent of survey recipients responded to the questions. Detailed information and the full survey report can be found at http://www.rackspace.com/downloads/surveys/VirtualizationSurvey.pdf.

About Rackspace Managed Hosting
A recognized leader in the global managed hosting market, Rackspace Managed Hosting delivers enterprise-level managed services to businesses of all sizes. Serving more than 13,000 customers in eight data centers worldwide, Rackspace integrates the industry’s best technologies for each customer need and delivers it as a service via the company’s award-winning Fanatical Support™. Through trusted relationships, Rackspace serves as an extension of its customers’ IT departments, enabling them to focus on their core business.  Since its inception in 1998, Rackspace has grown more than 50 percent a year. For more information, please visit www.rackspace.com, or call 800-961-2888.

Rackspace Survey Reveals Hosting Customers Believe Virtualization is Ready for Mission-critical Applications

Related News

Rackspace Hosts over One Million Unique Visitors to South African Tourism Site amid Soccer World Cup
Rackspace Hosting, the world's leader in the hosting and cloud computing industry, announced today that the new South Africa Tourism website is being hosted by Rackspace Hosting.

eBillingHub® Selects Rackspace Hosting For High Availability and Performance
Market Leader for Law Firm Electronic Billing Relies on Web Hosting and Cloud Expertise to Support Growth of SaaS-based eBilling

Rackspace Survey Reveals that Majority of Surveyed Businesses Would ‘Love To Never Have To Buy Another Server Again’
The results of a survey that was released today by Rackspace Hosting highlight the growing problem of businesses struggling to cope with the demands of managing their own servers.

FreshBooks Chooses Hybrid Hosting From Rackspace
Rackspace Hosting, the world’s leader in hosting, today announced that FreshBooks, the leader in online invoicing and bookkeeping for professionals, is leveraging the company’s new hybrid model of both cloud and dedicated hosting to service their IT needs.

Online Game Publisher, Uforia, Significantly Reduces IT Costs with Rackspace Email
Rackspace Hosting, the world’s leader in hosting, announced today that leading online game publisher, Uforia, has deployed Rackspace Email across their organization.