Santa Barbara, Calif., August 17, 2010 -- RightScale, Inc., the leader in cloud computing management, today announced that the RightScale Cloud Management Platform now supports Microsoft Windows-based applications running in the cloud. Windows users can now take advantage of RightScale to simplify the complexities of deploying and managing applications in the cloud using its ServerTemplate methodology and new Windows-specific features to meet common cloud computing needs such as dynamically configuring servers, managing software updates, implementing custom stacks, and operating across multiple clouds. The addition of Windows to RightScale's supported operating systems extends the company's reach to the massive Windows community, which comprises a high percentage of enterprise organizations.

"We've seen growing demand for Windows support over the last year, especially among our enterprise customers and prospects," said Thorsten von Eicken, RightScale CTO. "Windows applications, which are often developed with custom stacks, can present unique challenges when deployed in the cloud. With our latest release, Windows users can now leverage RightScale's hallmark cloud automation and portability, address common Windows cloud issues, and manage user access and costs. We believe this is a powerful combination of benefits."

RightScale Delivers its Cloud Automation, Management, and Portability to Windows Users

With the latest release of the RightScale Cloud Management Platform, Windows users can now take advantage of RightScale's powerful cloud automation, management and portability. With RightScale, Windows servers can be dynamically configured without user interaction, enabling true automation and orchestration of system behavior. RightScale's rules-based automation integrates directly with Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) and other custom monitoring tools. With RightScale, systems administrators view, monitor and manage entire systems - groups of servers architected to work together. Moreover, RightScale's portability keeps Windows customers from getting locked in to any one cloud region, provider, or type - public or private.

Using RightScale's pre-configured ServerTemplates and RightImages, Windows users can get started in the cloud in minutes, instead of days or weeks. Users can now take advantage of RightScale's .NET All-in-One Developer ServerTemplate, build their own ServerTemplates using RightScale's multi-cloud Windows RightImages, or use their existing cloud images. With this release, RightScale delivers Windows RightImages, including 32- and 64-bit versions of a base Windows image, Windows with SQL Server Express, and Windows with SQL Server that support multiple cloud regions. A RightLink Starter ServerTemplate for customers with existing cloud images is also available.

RightScale Addresses Common Windows Cloud Computing Challenges

With RightScale's ServerTemplate methodology, Windows developers and users can overcome common challenges specific to launching and running Windows applications in the cloud - challenges that make portability and automation difficult. Some of these issues include licensing that prohibits images from running on multiple clouds, requirements for user interaction at installation, installation of large software packages, and the constant flow of patches and updates. RightScale's modular and variable-based ServerTemplates let customers bundle common server components into one base configuration, a RightImage, which can be used across many different server types. This methodology delivers portability across multiple clouds, supports automation, and significantly reduces the number of images that need to be maintained.

RightScale customer Virtual Ark is an international application managed services company that partners with ISVs to help them extend their on-premise applications to SaaS/on-demand computing by leveraging existing cloud services.

"With this release, RightScale is bringing all the benefits of its leading management platform to the Windows community," said Marty Gauvin, CEO and president of Virtual Ark. "This is exciting for us, as it accelerates our automation strategy. RightScale eases the complexities of deploying and managing on the cloud, and this is particularly important with a Windows-based application. In addition to its well-known portability and management features, RightScale now delivers numerous Windows-specific benefits, such as simplification of Windows code updates, new license keys, and patches."

For more information about the RightScale Cloud Management Platform, please go to http://www.RightScale.com.

About RightScale

RightScale is the leader in cloud computing management. Founded in 2006, the company offers a fully automated cloud management platform that enables organizations to easily deploy and manage business critical applications across multiple clouds with complete control and portability. The RightScale Cloud Management Platform is delivered as "software as a service" (SaaS) and is available in a range of editions. To date, thousands of deployments and over one million servers have been launched on the RightScale platform for leading organizations such as PBS, Harvard University, Zynga and Sling Media. To learn more about RightScale, please go to http://www.RightScale.com.

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Source: RightScale