Notonthehighstreet.com chooses Rackspace

Rackspace says that one of the UK’s most innovative online retailers, notonthehighstreet.com, completes its Hybrid Cloud model with the adoption of Rackspace® Private Cloud.

Notonthehighstreet.com, which has generated transactions in excess of £83million in the past year, will leverage Rackspace Private Cloud to run the bulk of its application, allowing the business flexibility to scale.

In addition, notonthehighstreet.com already uses Rackspace Public Cloud services to handle bursts in site activity at busy times of the year, giving it a true Hybrid Cloud portfolio.

This hybrid cloud model means not only will customers using notonthehighstreet.com continue to have a great and seamless experience, but the business is now able to deploy all its internal systems as services. This provides the ideal balance of speed, security and flexibility when scaling operations up or down, without any unwelcome investment in new IT infrastructures.

Rackspace will manage the computing, storage, networks, and operating systems of notonthehighstreet.com, but will also provide support services for complex tools and application stacks.

Yoann Martin, IT Director at notonthehighstreet.com, commented, “We’ve been with Rackspace for six years, and we’ve come to rely on the Fanatical Support® we get from them. Using the hybrid cloud, and having everything managed by Rackspace, gives us the flexibility we need to tailor things to suit our business aims – whether that’s in terms of rolling services out internationally or isolating specific areas, such as PCI compliance, in order to focus on them.”

With Rackspace managing its Hybrid Cloud portfolio, notonthehighstreet.com’s IT department has been able to have a greater focus on strategic activities, such as DevOps and new service deployment, to help the company manage its growth and expansion.

Martin continued, “Rackspace goes above and beyond the operational level for us, helping to constantly evolve our infrastructure. That eliminates the pain of having to do it all ourselves and means our technical talent can focus on doing what they do best – building our business.”

Since launching in 2006, notonthehighstreet.com has become one of the UK’s most innovative businesses, offering in excess of 100,000 original, inspirational lifestyle products from the UK’s most creative small businesses.

Because of its rapid growth, the company needs to constantly improve and grow its capabilities. Its success as an innovative retailer is due to its constant focus on investing in the right technology, people and processes. It has been able to do this, and develop impressive internal technical strengths, while relying on Rackspace to provide the infrastructure and support needed at all times.

Jeff Cotten, Managing Director of Rackspace International, said, “Notonthehighstreet.com has been a real ground-breaker in the online retail sector, receiving a lot of well-deserved praise. We’ve watched the business grow from an exciting start-up to an award-winning, multi-million pound enterprise. Staying at the forefront of business and continuing to develop in new areas isn’t easy – it takes vision, commitment and, in the case of an online business, technology that can keep pace with your needs.”

Cotten continued, “Rackspace customers don’t need to become cloud computing experts – we manage specialised clouds for our customers to run their business on, so they can concentrate on just that, running their business. We’re proud of the work we’ve been able to do for notonthehighstreet.com and we’re excited about being with them on the next phase of their successful journey.”