SANTA BARBARA, CA and SAN ANTONIO, TX, Nov. 5 – RightScale Inc., and Rackspace Hosting, the open cloud company, today announced their entry into a strategic agreement to integrate RightScale cloud management with the Rackspace Open Cloud powered by OpenStack. As part of the agreement, RightScale will support Rackspace Open Cloud products with its leading cloud management platform.

This announcement builds on the long-standing relationship between RightScale and Rackspace and their mutual commitment to choice and openness of cloud solutions for customers. Customers can select from private, public or hybrid offerings and have the freedom to deploy their applications in a Rackspace data center or a customer data center. Rackspace provides the open cloud choices and RightScale provides the 'single pane of glass' management platform for public, private or hybrid clouds.

RightScale support for Rackspace Open Cloud will provide integration with a suite of Rackspace Public Cloud services -- including Cloud Servers, Cloud Databases, Cloud Block Storage, Cloud Networks -- as well as Rackspace Private Cloud. In addition, RightScale's expertise in deploying and managing cloud based applications, combined with Rackspace's Fanatical Support, will drive reliability and dependability for customers.

"Enterprise interest in OpenStack continues to increase. This agreement ensures that RightScale customers have an open cloud alternative that aligns with the OpenStack trunk code base and minimizes proprietary extensions," said Michael Crandell, CEO at RightScale. "Rackspace has been very forward-thinking with their open cloud initiatives and we applaud that. RightScale focuses on offering our customers the ability to easily and more successfully deploy on the cloud, and so does Rackspace with their world-renowned 'Fanatical Support' -- critical elements for the adoption and growth of cloud."

"With so many ways to build and deploy OpenStack-powered clouds we are excited that RightScale has selected Rackspace as their recommended choice," said Jim Curry, general manager of Rackspace Private Cloud Business. "RightScale cloud management provides a key solution to customers who need simplicity in running hybrid cloud environments. With RightScale's cloud management and Rackspace's Fanatical Support, customers can focus more on managing their business while we manage their cloud."

The joint solution is an ideal fit for startups innovating on new technologies, independent software vendors looking for a reliable solution on which to build their software as a service offerings, and enterprise IT organizations looking for agility and efficiency, among other use cases.

About RightScale

RightScale Inc., cloud management enables organizations to easily deploy and manage business-critical applications across public, private, and hybrid clouds. RightScale provides efficient configuration, monitoring, automation, and governance of cloud computing infrastructure and applications. Since 2006, millions of servers have been launched with the RightScale solution by leading enterprises including the Associated Press, CBS Interactive, Intercontinental Hotels Group, PBS, and Zynga.

About Rackspace

Rackspace Hosting 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.

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Source: Rackspace