Rackspace introduced its Next Generation Public Cloud powered by OpenStack and featuring Cloud Servers, Cloud Databases, Cloud Block Storage, Cloud Networks, a completely new cloud Control Panel, Cloud Monitoring and support for the OpenStack API.
Rackspace is using OpenStack “Quantum” and Nicira’s Network Virtualization Platform (NVP) to automate network services independent of data center network hardware. The design is expected to promote operational simplicity and reduce the costs of managing Rackspace’s large-scale, multi-tenant clouds.
OpenStack Quantum allows users to programmatically create and manage logically abstracted network services. Leveraging Quantum’s pluggable architecture and extensible API, Nicira has delivered an NVP plug-in which allows OpenStack environments to take full advantage of a Nicira distributed virtualized network infrastructure
Rackspace’s new Cloud Servers are provisioned and managed by the new OpenStack API as well as via a control panel. Cloud Databases, powered by OpenStack – gives customers API access to massively scalable, high availability MySQL database that is based on SAN storage for high performance and provides automated management of common database tasks.
“The open era of the cloud is a reality and Rackspace has positioned itself at the forefront of this massive, technological shift,” said Lanham Napier, CEO of Rackspace. “We’re drawing a line in the sand against proprietary cloud providers. With this launch, Rackspace is providing an open cloud alternative, backed by Fanatical Support and our core expertise on OpenStack, to deliver a strong product portfolio that will help customers navigate their way through an increasingly complex cloud environment.�?
Nicira noted that it initiated, leads and is the most active participant in the ‘Quantum’ project. Nicira’s Dan Wendlandt is the Project Technical Lead (PTL) for Quantum.
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