The Keys to Cloud Success: Choice, Fit and World Class Expertise

Today's IT departments are faced with many challenges — finding superior expertise, managing security regulations, supporting multiple cloud platforms, reducing infrastructure spend — the list is endless.

While these barriers can lengthen cloud adoption rates, they don’t have to.

More than 350 technologists and innovators learned that earlier this month when they joined Rackspace experts and partners for Rackspace::Solve San Francisco, our free, one-day cloud technology conference. At the Four Seasons Hotel, heads stopped scratching and lightbulbs shone bright.

These ‘aha’ moments were a byproduct of Rackspace customers and industry leaders contributing to the IT transformation conversation. Rackspace::Solve emcee and vice president of our AWS practice area, Prashanth Chandrasekar, said it best: “Companies don’t know where to start. What they need is a choice and a best fit.”

So what are the choices that will help you tackle your challenges? As the largest managed cloud provider, Rackspace offers customers the expertise they need across the world’s leading clouds, including OpenStack, AWS and Microsoft Azure, all with expert guidance and Fanatical Support on top.

Whether you’re a Fortune 100 company with legacy workloads or an emerging start-up with the hottest mobile application, we have a solution for the challenges that keep you up at night. Sesame Workshop, Rodan + Fields and GSD&M among others have partnered with us for that exact reason. At Rackspace, we know cloud isn’t easy, and our customers agree. Watch these customer journeys and see for yourself as they discuss what worked, what didn’t and how they transformed lessons learned into proactive solutions for strategic business growth.

Shadrach Kisten – senior vice president, IT & Digital Media Engineering, Sesame Workshop

Goal: To use the power of digital media and give kids globally — at an early age — the access to resources that will help them grow smarter, stronger and kinder.

Challenge: As a nonprofit, Sesame Workshop needed to move from physical data centers to cloud services while maintaining low operational costs.

https://youtu.be/3EH1BYZRIEQ

Ralph Loura – chief technology officer, Rodan + Fields

Goal: To partner with independent business owners across the United States and some global regions to redefine the future of aging.

Challenge: With over 150,000 consultants in the field, surveying more than 700,000 preferred customers, Rodan + Fields needed to quickly scale their applications and accurately forecast demand.

https://youtu.be/_6yt8NUzFxg

Kirya Francis – vice president of Media & Research Technology, GSD&M

Goal: To do whatever it takes to build their clients’ business so they can fulfill their purpose.

Challenge: They needed to execute a commercial and launch a landing page during “the big game” that would withhold a large and unknown amount of traffic without crashing.

https://youtu.be/E6doqb2lNPE

When presented with options and solutions to common challenges, our customers thrive. As Rackspace Senior Vice President of Strategy and Product Scott Crenshaw noted in his keynote session, “Every company is moving to IT-as-a-Service model. What matters is giving you and your users the right choices and then ensuring that they are successful in using the platforms they select. We live in a multi-cloud world and — that is the key to success.”

As the future of technology becomes more consumable, implementing process maturity and operational rigor with a dedicated partner becomes more important. If you’ve never attended a Rackspace::Solve event, I strongly encourage you to attend next year. These events are designed to give you advanced IT awareness and break down the roadblocks hindering your innovation and cloud adoption methodologies.

We hope to see you at a Rackspace::Solve Conference in 2017!