Available as a free download, the software empowers customers to deploy private clouds

SAN ANTONIO, Texas, Aug. 15 — Today, Rackspace Hosting, the open cloud company, announced the release of Rackspace Private Cloud Software, powered by OpenStack– making it simple and easy for companies to install, test and run a multi-node OpenStack based private cloud environment. The software, code named "Alamo," uses the same OpenStack compute platform, Nova, used to run Rackspace clouds and is available as a free download from the Rackspace website. This software is based upon Rackspace's experience in deploying and operating OpenStack-based public and private clouds in a variety of environments including in Rackspace's own datacenters as well as in external datacenters. The Rackspace Private Cloud is backed by an optional support offering.

The Rackspace Private Cloud Software combines the capabilities of public cloud with the customization, reliability and control advantages of a dedicated environment. Customers now have a simple way to install an OpenStack-based private cloud in their own datacenter, at Rackspace, or in a colocation facility.

"We believe that the majority of our customers and cloud users will be running hybrid cloud environments for a long time," said Jim Curry, general manager of Private Cloud business at Rackspace. "Today's announcement allows businesses to utilize their existing investment in their own datacenter resources to run an open cloud solution for additional control and customization and also take advantage of Rackspace's datacenter options."

Key Benefits of Rackspace Private Cloud, Powered by OpenStack include:

• Deploy in minutes – To download, customers can go to www.rackspace.com/cloud/private and run a simple installer to deploy OpenStack components and configuration for private clouds.
• Integrated and tested configuration – Based on customer feedback, Rackspace selected a proven configuration, which initially includes Ubuntu 12.04 LTS host operating system and KVM hypervisor. It is 100% open source OpenStack Essex with Compute, Image Service, Identity Service and Dashboard. Rackspace is working with partners like Red Hat and others to offer its customers choice of host operating systems and OpenStack distributions in the future.
• Backed by Rackspace Fanatical Support - Organizations running the software can utilize free support forums or can purchase Escalation Support services from Rackspace. Escalation Support includes 24x7x365 ticket and phone support for Rackspace Private Cloud powered by OpenStack from the experts at Rackspace.

"Since the founding of OpenStack, we have had requests from the marketplace and our customers for a private cloud software offering based on OpenStack that makes it easy to get up and running. We are making that solution available through Rackspace's Private Cloud Software allowing organizations of any size to take advantage of open cloud technology that conforms 100% to the open source code base. Rackspace is making it easy for every IT decision maker, IT pro, and system administrator to install, test and run OpenStack clouds anywhere within minutes – you don't need to be an OpenStack expert," said Lew Moorman, president at Rackspace. "This is built, packaged and tested by the OpenStack experts at Rackspace, providing customers access to a proven configuration and to Rackspace's expert Fanatical Support team."

This software is the newest addition to the Rackspace Private Cloud suite along with OpenStack Training and Support services. For more information go to: www.rackspace.com/cloud/private

Supporting Quotes:

"Our customers trust us to provide solutions to their big data problems, and we trust Rackspace to host those solutions for our customers. With Vectorwise Cloud Powered by Rackspace and the introduction of Rackspace Private Cloud Software, our customers can take action on their big data with high-performance analytic database services wherever and however they need it." Fred Gallagher, general manager Vectorwise, Actian Corporation

"Rackspace Private Cloud Software includes Ubuntu 12.04 LTS which brings together leading cloud, deployment and service orchestration technologies. We believe it will quickly become the standard for how enterprises deploy their private clouds as OpenStack already is for public clouds." Kyle MacDonald, vice president cloud, Canonical

"CloudTP clients have long been asking for an easy to install, fully supported version of OpenStack and Rackspace has more than delivered with Rackspace Private Cloud Software. We expect Rackspace Private Cloud Software to rapidly accelerate the adoption of OpenStack with our enterprise customers." Ken Pepple, vice president of OpenStack solutions, Cloud Technology Partners

"As a global cloud infrastructure leader, EMC is committed to customer choice for their private and increasingly hybrid cloud environments. We are a longstanding partner of Rackspace and are pleased to extend our industry-leading storage solutions and capabilities for Rackspace Private Cloud Software. For customers adopting OpenStack with Rackspace, they can be confident of EMC's innovation and support for their underlying storage solutions and cloud infrastructure." Dan Hushon, chief technology officer, service provider program, EMC Corporation

"Rackspace has delivered a well tested and free way for customers to utilize OpenStack, and enStratus delivers the governance, security and automation features that best enable enterprises to leverage it. Users can download Rackspace® Private Cloud Software, install it and be deploying workloads using enStratus in under an hour!" George Reese, chief technology officer and co-founder, enStratus

"I'm very impressed with the Rackspace Private Cloud Software as it directly addresses the concern of OpenStack being hard to install and configure. The installation is very robust and intuitive and requires very few parameters to produce a usable OpenStack environment." Kevin Jackson, infrastructure architect and author, OpenStack Cloud Computing Cookbook

"The release of Rackspace Private Cloud Software with Opscode Chef included is a result of the great collaboration between Opscode and Rackspace and a testament to the benefits Chef provides for deploying and managing OpenStack-powered clouds."Jesse Robbins, chief community officer, Opscode

"Redapt works with Rackspace to deliver fully converged private cloud hardware and software solutions powered by OpenStack to our customers. Having OpenStack packaged, tested and fully supported with Rackspace Private Cloud Software allows us to offer our customers a complete solution, and we're thrilled to be part of the offering." Rick Cantu, co-founder and chief executive officer, Redapt

"Red Hat applauds Rackspace's efforts to help enable wider usage of OpenStack. Combined with our announcement of the availability of a preview release of Red Hat's OpenStack distribution earlier this week, we see great potential in ongoing collaboration with Rackspace to deliver open hybrid clouds to our enterprise customers." Brian Stevens, chief technology officer and vice president, worldwide engineering, Red Hat.

About Rackspace

Rackspace Hosting (NYSE: RAX) is the open cloud company, delivering open technologies and powering more than 190,000 customers worldwide. Rackspace provides its renowned Fanatical Support across a broad portfolio of IT products, including Public Cloud, Private Cloud, Hybrid Hosting and Dedicated Hosting. The company offers choice, flexibility and freedom from vendor lock in. Rackspace has been recognized by Bloomberg BusinessWeek as a Top 100 Performing Technology Company and is featured on Fortune's list of 100 Best Companies to Work For. Rackspace was positioned in the Leaders Quadrant by Gartner Inc. in the "2011 Magic Quadrant for Managed Hosting." Rackspace is headquartered in San Antonio with offices and data centers around the world. For more information, visit www.rackspace.com.

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Source: Rackspace Hosting