Rackspace launches Managed Cloud

Rackspace has announced a new managed service model for delivering public cloud services that gives businesses and developers the help they need to design, manage, scale and grow their cloud operations.

In addition, Rackspace announced “developer +,” a new programme for developers that offers essential services needed to build scalable applications. The programme enables developers to easily sample Rackspace Managed Cloud services and Fanatical Support.

"The cloud market is evolving. More customers are looking for a trusted partner with specialised expertise to help manage their cloud. Rackspace is ideally positioned to lead this Managed Cloud segment of the market,” said Graham Weston, Rackspace co-founder and CEO. “Our new service levels will help businesses tap into the power of the cloud without the pain of recruiting experts in dozens of complex technologies. We are the partner that will be with them every step of the way to make their cloud strategy successful.”

New Managed Service Levels
Under the Managed Cloud umbrella, Rackspace has rolled out two managed service levels: Managed Infrastructure and Managed Operations. Both service levels feature more expertise at lower total cost than companies managing cloud operations on their own. Highlights include:
Managed Infrastructure – This new service level offers a package of benefits for customers that far exceed equivalent services from any other cloud provider. Customers will receive Rackspace’s renowned Fanatical Support, which features:
· 24x7 access to human cloud engineers
· Architectural advice
· Security guidance
· Code development assistance
· Launch assistance

Managed Operations – This service level provides customers with Fanatical Support and all the services included at the Managed Infrastructure level, plus additional proactive features such as a dedicated account manager, 24x7 availability monitoring and response, and management of common operating systems and application stacks. Rackspace offers two approaches to deliver its Managed Operations service level to customers:
· In one approach, Rackspace logs into the customer’s servers to manage and, when necessary, help fix them.
· The other approach leverages Rackspace DevOps Automation Service, which manages a customer’s infrastructure as code, to help it achieve faster deployments and streamlined operations.

In addition, monitoring and enabling customers to have real-time visibility into their infrastructure is an essential part of the Rackspace Managed Cloud strategy. Customers on both Managed Cloud service levels will now receive Rackspace Cloud Monitoring at no charge. For Managed Operations customers, cloud engineers will also watch the customer’s monitors and respond 24x7 to alerts.

Rackspace’s enhanced service levels also provide additional value and offer a service level agreement that is not available with other providers. Customers on the Managed Operations service level will see SLA credits doubled, up to 100 percent of their fees for the affected components for that month’s billing period.
In addition, Rackspace is highlighting the value it provides over unmanaged cloud providers by offering cloud deployment planning and the availability of proactive assistance included in all of its service levels. Managed Operations customers with planned high traffic events will be able to work with Rackspace to ensure that their Managed Cloud infrastructure is able to cope with the expected levels of traffic. This programme, now only in limited availability for some Managed Operations customers, provides a 10x accelerated SLA credit during these planned events for up to 200 per cent of the customer’s monthly spending, subject to certain restrictions.

Dave Walker, chief technical officer at Kabbee, commented: “Kabbee is London’s leading price comparison and booking app, and plays an important role in London’s transport service offering. For this reason, we absolutely cannot risk our app being slow, or even worse, down. With an average of 1,000 quotes being generated each minute by up to 500,000 users, we experience major peaks in demand, and this must not affect the speed at which the app works.

“All our supplier decisions are extremely well thought out, and when the time came for Kabbee to choose a new cloud provider, we found that the usual suspects couldn’t provide us with the service guarantee that we need to offer to our users.

“The difference with Rackspace is that they came to us with a managed solution that meant we could outsource 90 per cent of our infrastructure requirements to their support guys, leaving our people to continue to deliver great service to customers and our 15,000 minicab drivers alike. Our Rackspace team is very engaged in Kabbee's business model, the product, and our technical requirements, and that allows us to focus on what we do rather than having to be an infrastructure specialist as well.”

Guillaume Aubuchon, CTO at DigitalFilm Tree, which provides pre- and post-production services to the movie industry added: “Rackspace is a huge part of our application development. It’s crucial that we have instant access to someone who knows both Rackspace’s infrastructure and our application to help guide and support us as we scale up or build out new features. The value of Rackspace Managed Cloud goes well beyond that. Without Rackspace, we would spend more than $100,000 per year on an in-house engineer to keep our Critique servers running 24x7. Rackspace lets us focus on work that will grow our application and make our business more efficient and profitable.”

Nigel Beighton, UK CTO Rackspace, explained:  “In an ideal world, cloud should always fit how organisations work and not the other way around. Unfortunately, the reality is that all too often companies are unaware of the sheer complexity of setting up, managing and keeping cloud projects running successfully. Yes, some companies have the large in-house operations teams to be able to implement fast, resilient cloud services, but we find the majority need much more than just the raw infrastructure; they need expertise and ongoing management of their cloud strategy that supports their business goals.

“In this way, developers can stay great at developing without having to run cloud services; IT departments can focus on adding real business value rather than managing cloud complexity; and businesses can concentrate on running and growing their businesses. This is what Managed Cloud is all about – the best infrastructure fit to business needs combined with specialised expertise and Fanatical Support.”