Rackspace Enhances Private Cloud Software
London, UK – November 15, 2012 – Rackspace® Hosting (NYSE: RAX), the open cloud company, today announced new features and enhanced support offerings for the Rackspace Private Cloud Software, dubbed “Alamo.” Since the OpenStack-powered Rackspace Private Cloud Software launched in August, thousands of organisations have downloaded the software from over 125 countries spanning all continents, with people from Fortune 100 companies, colleges, universities and research centers downloading the product.
“The goal of the Rackspace Private Cloud Software is to provide customers with a fast and easy way to deploy a free OpenStack-powered private cloud anywhere in the world,” Mike Aeschliman, head of engineering and product for Rackspace Private Cloud. “With the new release, we can now offer Fanatical Support to customers’ cloud software using our remote access tools. This is a huge step in our mission to enable organisations to start realising the benefits of clouds and trust them for mission-critical workloads.”
As part of this new release, Rackspace has extended its service portfolio for Rackspace Private Cloud. The new support level, Core Software Support, now includes 24x7x365 remote access support of Rackspace Private Cloud Software stack. Rackspace is offering this new service level in addition to the Software Escalation Support that already exists. With Core Software Support, Rackspace engineers will now remotely log in to customers’ Private Cloud environments to provide services such as installation, configuration, patching and troubleshooting.
Some of the new features of Rackspace Private Cloud Software include:
- Block Storage: Highly scalable Block Storage turns external storage into an additional storage volume for a private cloud environment, based on OpenStack Cinder.
- Object Storage: Powered by OpenStack Swift, Object Storage allows customers to create massively scalable storage resource pools that can be used by a Rackspace Private Cloud environment for storing files as well as server images taking advantage of commodity hardware to reduce costs.
- Monitoring: Graphite and Collectd applications are included to extend the monitoring and alerting capabilities available to private cloud environments.
The latest feature release of Rackspace Private Cloud Software incorporates the latest release of the OpenStack Cloud Software platform, Folsom, released to the public in September 2012 and the same platform that powers the Rackspace Cloud supporting thousands of customers. The Folsom release was developed by hundreds of contributors in the OpenStack community who implemented about 185 new features.
Following on from the success of the availability of the OpenStack software from the US, organisations in EMEA can now download the latest version, Folsom, from the UK. In addition to providing this free download, Rackspace are extending the training and certification programme to the region inviting customers to realise the potential the OpenStack platform offers by learning from the experts at Rackspace and becoming certified, earning increased credibility and recognition by the OpenStack community. These programs enable customers to build their private cloud skills and the experience required to install, run, and operate OpenStack clouds.
“Fisoc’s product, Buzz Points, is a merchant-funded loyalty program that enables banks and credit unions to connect consumers and merchants through social media engagement and rewards. As a result of our firm’s rapid growth in the financial services industry we selected Rackspace’s Private Cloud Software to provide a secure, scalable and reliable environment,” stated David Fruhling II, chief operating and financial officer for Fisoc. “The new software features are particularly important to us for two key reasons. First, the enhanced monitoring, alerts and support capabilities will allow us to provide the highest levels of uptime to our banking customers. Secondly, we are a big-data company with massive amounts of financial and social data to use in targeting and analytics, and the new Object Storage features will allow us to store and manage this data in a more efficient and cost effective manner.”
Organisations that choose Rackspace as the foundation for their private cloud strategy will benefit from the large OpenStack ecosystem of innovation, plus a common architecture between their private cloud and some of the leading public clouds, empowering them with choices.
To download the software and get more information, visit www.rackspace.co.uk/private-cloud
ENDS
About Rackspace Hosting
Rackspace® (NYSE: RAX) is the open cloud company and founder of OpenStack, the standard open-source operating system for cloud computing. Headquartered in San Antonio, Rackspace delivers its renowned Fanatical Support® to more than 200,000 business customers, from data centers on four continents. Rackspace is a leading provider of hybrid clouds, which enable businesses to run their workloads where they run most effectively — whether on the public cloud, a private cloud, dedicated servers, or a combination of these platforms. Rackspace has been recognized by Bloomberg BusinessWeek as a Top 100 Performing Technology Company, and is featured on Fortune’s list of 100 Best Companies to Work For. For more information, visit www.rackspace.co.uk.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions. If such risks or uncertainties materialize or such assumptions prove incorrect, the results of Rackspace Hosting could differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements and assumptions. All statements other than statements of historical fact are statements that could be deemed forward-looking statements, including any statements concerning expected development, performance or market acceptance associated with the Rackspace’s hybrid cloud solutions, federated cloud services or other associated products and services; anticipated operational and financial benefits from Rackspace’s hybrid cloud solutions, federated cloud services or other associated products and services; any statements of expectation or belief; and any statements of assumptions underlying any of the foregoing. Risks, uncertainties and assumptions include including the possibility that expected benefits from the Rackspace cloud network program or the products and services offered through the Rackspace cloud network program may not materialize because the products or services are not generally accepted in the marketplace, which could occur due to certain factors including (i) a failure to market the products or services cost effectively, differentiate the products and services from competitive products and services or communicate differentiations effectively, (ii) the reliability, quality or compatibility associated with the products or services, (iii) changes in technology which adversely affect the benefits of the product, (iv) slowdowns in the general economy or technology industry that impact consumer spending habits, (v) internal strategy decisions that impact the platform, products and services, and (vi) and other risks that are described in Rackspace Hosting’s Form 10-Q for the year ended March 31, 2012, filed with the SEC on May 9, 2013. Except as required by law, Rackspace Hosting assumes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements publicly, or to update the reasons actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements, even if new information becomes available in the future.
