Surviving the cloud evolution with Rackspace and Google Cloud Platform

9th October, 2018

A few weeks ago, we launched Rackspace Managed Services for Google Cloud Platform (GCP) in the ANZ region, expanding on Rackspace and Google Cloud’s global partnership announced in March 2017.

This is the first deal of its kind for Google in Australia and New Zealand, and a unique opportunity for Rackspace to help more organisations globally move to GCP to run critical workloads and go one step further into their cloud transformation journeys.

Right after the announcement, our local team had the opportunity to attend the Google Cloud Summit Sydney, and spoke to a wide range of local existing and prospective customers about their cloud needs. These conversations highlighted that many organisations and IT decision-makers (ITDMs) are still struggling with their cloud evolution; a point also reflected in the findings from recent research conducted in the region, which results are highlighted in our Survive The Cloud Evolution: Navigating Digital Transformation’s murky waters whitepaper.

The research showed that:

Nearly four in five ITDMs cite cloud as critical to their business transformation success
A large majority of ITDMs (64%) feel stakeholders understand the benefits of cloud, but not the time and complexity of the journey
For ITDMs planning to embark on a cloud project, security and compliance remain the top concerns on their list (60%), while another 60% ITDMs feel a lack of skilled resources within their team plays a major role in hindering the success of cloud projects

These results aren’t confined to Australia. These are the trends and feedback we receive from our customers around the world.

Helping our customers to survive the complexities of a cloud evolution project

To set up cloud projects for success, IT teams need to build shared knowledge hubs and work with the right partners who can assist in change management and help navigate the complexities that exist between different stakeholders, as well as guarantee a high level of security, and that customers will always come first.

Working with a third party expert, such as a Managed Service Provider (MSP) who specialises in cloud, can provide insight into where to go next and most importantly, shift perceptions around risk and change.

Thanks to partnerships like the one with Google Cloud, Rackspace is able to provide that extra layer of support and security that organisations need in today’s digital world. This strategic partnership with Google provides the market with an incredible cloud technology platform, giving organisations looking to kick start or expand their cloud evolution more choice than ever before.

Rackspace is focused on helping organisations de-risk their digital and cloud transformation by being trusted advisors. We are taking the cloud transformation burden off their hands, using our deep cloud expertise – and now GCP’s unique capabilities - to help businesses focus on driving business growth and efficiencies.

When it comes to security, the joint Google and Rackspace capabilities can also give organisations an extra piece of mind, particularly at a time where the global data privacy and cybersecurity regulatory landscape continues to evolve rapidly.

Google Cloud is natively built around security and uses a range of technologies, approaches, standards, and methodologies to protect applications, IT resources and customer data. Beyond prevention, Rackspace provides monitoring and detection services combined with around-the-clock rapid response and remediation services to minimise the time criminals can spend in an organisation’s environment and the harm they can cause.

More organisations embarking on the Google Cloud Platform journey with Rackspace

More organisations globally are seeing the benefits of using Rackspace’s services when moving to the Google Cloud Platform. Actually, Australian online education leader Open Colleges, which has operations across Australia and a presence in various international markets, is our latest customer to enter a GCP with Rackspace Fanatical experience journey and is a great example of an organisation successfully working with Rackspace to survive its cloud evolution.

Deploying Google Cloud Platform with the support of Rackspace will give Open Colleges the scale and capability to better handle enrolment seasonality peaks, develop new product offerings, accelerate go to market, optimise the enrolment experience, and offer Open Colleges’ teams and students peace of mind when it comes to data security.

The full support model provided by Rackspace will help Open Colleges build the foundation of a strong new infrastructure network, and ultimately future proof the organisation’s foundations and growth. Rackspace’s work will also be instrumental in delivering on Open Colleges’ ambitious marketing goals, as well as engaging with potential students in an informative and personalised way.

Rackspace’s Managed Services for GCP will support Open Colleges’ quick expansion across new geographies and markets, as well as empower the online education specialist to deliver new types of courses, including the availability of new short course formats.  

Now that more customers worldwide are embarking on Rackspace’s Fanatical Experience for GCP, we are also looking forward to expanding our Customer Reliability Engineering (CRE) program and full Managed Security Services for GCP, to help take our customers’ cloud transformation even further.