Rackspace Teams With Solution Provider To Deliver Cloud In-A-Box

Who said setting up a private cloud had to be complicated?

Cloud hosting company Rackspace Wednesday unveiled a cloud-in-box solution to allow customers to merely turn on a switch and have a fully operating, OpenStack, private cloud service in the data center.

San Antonio-based Rackspace is partnering with solution provider Redapt, a solution provider headquartered in Redmond, Wash., to offer an easy to deploy, plug-in product to a customers’ data center. Redapt will do integration, testing and configuration.

Customers can receive Rackspace Cloud: Private Edition within 14 days of ordering and require only power and network connectivity. In addition to providing hardware, Rackspace will provide around-the-clock support and operations assistance.

Rackspace executives emphasized that the private cloud services offers all the benefits of a public cloud, including OpenStack, the open-source cloud reference architecture that allows systems integrators to deploy clouds in any data center using standard hardware.

OpenStack’s open-source software provisions and manages networks in a scalable cloud computing platform.

“The combination of Redapt and Rackspace enables a customer to have a fully packaged private cloud off the shelf and operationally managed and supported by OpenStack experts – anywhere they choose,” said Jim Curry, Rackspace general manager.

John Engates, Rackspace’s chief technology officer, said 160 companies are now participating in the OpenStack community.

Rackspace Cloud: Private Edition serves the needs of businesses that are looking for a way to avoid the complexity of creating cloud services, Engates said. “If you want a private cloud, why do it all yourself ?," he asked.

Redapt, whose client list includes Zynga, Citigroup and Red Hat, provides the highest level of customer support according to industry standards, said Scott Sanchez, Rackspace director of business development.

“Redapt will configure it…and Rackspace will take over the operation of the cloud and make certain it’s fully managed,” Sanchez said.