Rackspace Announces Private Cloud powered by Red Hat

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, 14th February, 2016– Rackspace® (NYSE: RAX) today announced the release of Rackspace Private Cloud powered by Red Hat®, which delivers OpenStack® private clouds as-a-service using the Red Hat Enterprise Linux® OpenStack Platform. The new offering expands the Rackspace OpenStack-as-a-Service product portfolio, further extending the company’s strategy to deliver the most reliable and easy-to-use OpenStack private and hybrid clouds in the world.

“As the leading operator of OpenStack clouds with the most comprehensive OpenStack product portfolio in the industry, Rackspace is excited to expand our managed services and expertise to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform,” said Darrin Hanson, vice president and general manager of OpenStack Private Cloud at Rackspace. “We help make OpenStack simple by eliminating the complexity and delivering it as-a-service to customers in their data center, a Rackspace data center or in a colocation facility.”

Fully managed by OpenStack and Red Hat experts at Rackspace and backed by Fanatical Support, Rackspace Private Cloud powered by Red Hat provides public cloud benefits with the security, control and performance of an enterprise environment. The offering is backed by an industry-leading 99.99 percent OpenStack API uptime guarantee. Rackspace is contributing to Red Hat's continued efforts to improve Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform by testing and certifying for broad hardware and software compatibility, performance and availability. Rackspace manages and maintains the Red Hat environment including the underlying Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Red Hat Satellite and Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform so customers can focus on their business applications and not their infrastructure.

“We are excited about the launch of Rackspace Private Cloud powered by Red Hat.  This solution will further accelerate the adoption of OpenStack by bringing its power to customers keen to consume private cloud delivered as a managed service,” said Radhesh Balakrishnan, general manager, OpenStack, at Red Hat.  "Red Hat and Rackspace have a long history of working together to deliver leading technology solutions to customers, and we look forward to continuing to drive great outcomes for our customers through this extension of our relationship.”

As the 2015 Red Hat North American Cloud Partner of the Year with more than 170 Red Hat certifications and OpenStack operational expertise, Rackspace is uniquely positioned to provide customers the following benefits through a managed deployment of Red Hat powered private clouds:

Red Hat Certified Solution –The solution is a certified deployment of Red Hat Linux OpenStack Platform that is enterprise hardened and supported by a broad partner ecosystem.
Reduced Complexity – Customers have a single point of contact that will deploy, manage and maintain their Red Hat powered private cloud at Rackspace. As an additional feature of Rackspace Private Cloud powered by Red Hat, customers have the flexibility of bringing their own Red Hat subscriptions to Rackspace, using Red Hat Cloud Access.

“We are consistently hearing feedback from enterprises that one of the primary barriers to OpenStack adoption continues to be the operational complexities around deployment,” said Gina Longoria, senior analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy. “With Rackspace expanding their offerings to provide a tested and managed deployment of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform, customers can take out a lot of the uncertainty of the do it yourself model and leverage the OpenStack as-a-service product portfolio at Rackspace. The company’s leadership within OpenStack and long standing operational experience in running OpenStack powered clouds will continue to help drive enterprise adoption.”

Rackspace Private Cloud powered by Red Hat is now generally available for customers globally.