Rackspace launches OpenStack-powered next-gen public cloud

Rackspace, the top cloud infrastructure provider after Amazon, has significantly upgraded its core offerings with a new next-generation public cloud powered by OpenStack, the company said Monday.

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For quite some time, Amazon has outpaced Rackspace as the top dog for providing cloud infrastructure to companies. But Rackspace, which has a reputation for sterling customer service and leading the curve for cloud technology, wants to be the clear alternative for any business that wants to stay on the cutting edge of cloud.

“This collection of products is our biggest release ever,” Mark Interrante, VP of Products at Rackspace, told VentureBeat. “This launch is accelerating the company. Our goal is to deliver innovate cloud technology for our customers and we’ve been doing that for 10 years.”

The company highlights the following new offerings:

• Cloud Servers, powered by OpenStack – available with limited availability, based on the latest OpenStack compute release, this solution is fast, reliable, scalable and is accessible via the new OpenStack API as well as via an easy-to-use, intuitive control panel. Limited availability sign-ups are open now and Rackspace will begin providing access on May 1.

• Cloud Control Panel – available with limited availability, the new Control Panel was built from the ground up and with the customer in mind. It is simple, fast, intuitive and flexible. The new control panel also features multiple enhancements, including server tagging and multi-region capabilities.

• Cloud Databases, powered by OpenStack – available in early access, gives customers API access to massively scalable, high availability MySQL database that is based on SAN storage for high performance and provides automated management of common database tasks.

• Cloud Monitoring – available in early access, helps customers easily monitor their infrastructure and applications proactively, including OpenStack Clouds.

• Cloud Block Storage, powered by OpenStack – available in preview, this new solution is designed to give customers highly elastic raw storage and a choice between a high performance (leveraging solid state disks) or a standard lower-cost block storage solution.

• Cloud Networks, powered by OpenStack – available in preview, this solution is designed to allow customers to manage logically abstracted network services programmatically. Software-defined virtual networks provide flexibility and agility in addition to enhanced security via network isolation and port filtering.

San Antonio, Tex.-based Rackspace now serves more than 170,000 businesses and counts 60 percent of the Fortune 100 as customers. Rackspace doesn’t reveal too many specifics about the size of its cloud, but Interrante told us that the company now has around 80,000 physical servers.

Photo illustration: Sean Ludwig/VentureBeat

Original photo: basketman23/Shutterstock