Rackspace unveils ‘next generation OpenStack cloud’

Rackspace has announced its new cloud offering, incorporating OpenStack at every level.

The firm’s ‘next generation public cloud’ prides itself on being based on the open source operating system for cloud deployments and believes the latest version of OpenStack – codenamed Essex – has made the solution fit for business.

“What this launch demonstrates is the OpenStack code is production ready,” Fabio Torlini, Rackspace’s vice president of cloud, told Cloud Pro.

“We may be the first large company to use it across the whole [portfolio], but with people of our calibre and scale adoption [OpenStack], others will follow.”

However, the launch is still within its early stages. Servers and the control panel, both based on OpenStack, are available now but in limited amounts, which Rackspace claims will enable a “smooth ramp-up” of the services.

The firm’s cloud database, built on OpenStack and compatible with MySQL – although Microsoft support will follow – is production ready but, along with its monitoring service, is only in the “early access” stage, meaning little support, no service commitments and no billing.

Cloud block storage and cloud networks, again both powered by OpenStack, are currently in preview, with Rackspace seeking customers to test the solutions out.

All the OpenStack services are compatible with other Rackspace offerings.

With Citrix donating its Cloudstack offering to the Apache Software Foundation and VMware stamping its feet about being the best in the business when it comes to adoption of its vCloud offering, what is Rackspace targeting with this new public cloud?

“This next generation cloud will help us close the gap with Amazon when it comes to enterprises,” said Torlini. “We have done well with the small and medium business (SMB) market but we need to ramp this up.”

“It is about us closing this gap and we are real close.”

He also claimed OpenStack was the right choice as it was the cloud platform with the strongest adoption levels behind it.

“OpenStack has a lot of momentum and it is not just us showing it is ready for the prime time,” added Torlini.

“Lots of other vendors will be launching public clouds based on OpenStack, landing in Q2 and Q3 and that momentum is unstoppable.”

Lanham Napier, chief executive (CEO) of Rackspace, concluded that it was about taking on vendors to bring the open source alternative to the market.  

“We’re drawing a line in the sand against proprietary cloud providers,” he said. “With this launch, Rackspace is providing an open cloud alternative, backed by Fanatical Support and our core expertise on OpenStack, to deliver a strong product portfolio that will help customers navigate their way through an increasingly complex cloud environment.”