Rackspace and its Partners are the OpenStack Experts Helping Enterprises and Service Providers Deploy and Support OpenStack Clouds
March 8, 2011 – Organizations deploying OpenStack™, the open source cloud operating system, can now receive formal service and support offerings from Rackspace® Hosting, the world’s leading specialist in hosting and cloud computing. Rackspace today announced Rackspace Services for OpenStack, a new business that will offer training and certification, deployment services, and ongoing support to enterprises and service providers through its team of OpenStack experts and strategic alliances. For the first time, Rackspace will extend its commitment to service, Fanatical Support(r), beyond the company’s datacenters to stand behind any OpenStack cloud deployment.
“Customers want to realize the benefits of cloud computing in many locations depending on their requirements and needs. The promise of being open, flexible and compatible makes OpenStack the ideal platform; however, they also want the assurance that a partner like Rackspace is standing behind them when deploying it in their own datacenters,” said Jim Curry, General Manager of Rackspace Services for OpenStack. “We are ready to support OpenStack deployments anywhere starting today.”
Rackspace Services for OpenStack brings together the foremost OpenStack experts from the team who built and operate the Rackspace Cloud and from the recent acquisition of Anso Labs, a professional services company that helped large business and government organizations deploy and operate OpenStack Clouds. The launch of Rackspace Services for OpenStack, along with the acquisition of Anso Labs and new partnerships, reinforces Rackspace’s investment in the success of OpenStack by driving adoption of the emerging open cloud standard.
“Our team of OpenStack core contributors are excited to become part the Rackspace mission where we will be able to continue our commitment to advancing the OpenStack technology and spreading adoption,” said Jesse Andrews, co-founder of Anso Labs and Director of Development for Rackspace Services for OpenStack. “We look forward to helping others adopt the emerging open cloud standard with our experience deploying and operating a large-scale OpenStack Cloud.”
Rackspace Services for OpenStack will provide training, deployment services and ongoing support and management to enterprises and service providers via the team of OpenStack experts and its partner network:
- Training & Certification – Rackspace Services for OpenStack will provide training classes and certification testing for designing, developing and administering OpenStack Clouds. Rackspace also plans to empower a network of training and certification experts.
- Deployment Services – Rackspace Services for OpenStack, in conjunction with its partners, will help customers design and deploy OpenStack Clouds.
- Support & Management – Customers will have ongoing access to remote support and escalation assistance from the OpenStack experts, including proactive monitoring and fixes.
Rackspace Services for OpenStack will deliver bundled solutions, system integrations and proven technology recommendations through its strategic alliances, which include Autonomic Resources, Canonical, Citrix, Cloudscaling, Dell, Equinix, Intel, Grid Dynamics, Microsoft and Opscode. Rackspace and Dell are encouraging customers interested in OpenStack to engage in proofs of concept (POCs) with them now, and Dell is making it easy to turn bare metal servers into OpenStack Clouds with a new software installer, which the company expects to contribute to the OpenStack community after field tests.
About Rackspace Hosting
Rackspace Hosting is the world’s leading specialist in the hosting and cloud computing industry, and the founder of OpenStack, an open source cloud platform. The San Antonio-based company provides Fanatical Support® to its customers, across a portfolio of IT services, including Managed Hosting and Cloud Computing. In 2010, Rackspace was recognized by Bloomberg BusinessWeek as a Top 100 Performing Technology Company and listed on the InformationWeek 500 as one of the nation’s most innovative users of business technology. The company was also positioned in the Leaders Quadrant by Gartner Inc. in the “2010 Magic Quadrant for Cloud Infrastructure as a Service and Web Hosting.” For more information, visit www.rackspace.com.
