Cloud hosting giant Rackspace (RAX) has announced that it will now help customers deploy and manage Microsoft private clouds inside its data centers. As part of its managed cloud offerings in all of its U.S. data centers, the company is extending support to Hyper-V, System Center, Windows Server, and Windows Azure Pack.
Rackspace has until now offered limited support for Microsoft’s cloud platforms. In fact, that’s a competitive offering to Rackspace’s own private cloud services. But it has been trying to change its public image to a company that provides managed services around cloud developments.
The company says that its motive behind bringing support is to give users more choice. “We’ve learned that our customers desire a cloud that truly works for them. In some cases that means our OpenStack-powered Rackspace Private Cloud, and in others it means with Microsoft technology,” wrote Jeff DeVerter, SharePoint architect at the company.
The cloud hosting company also believes that this will help it attract Microsoft cloud users who want managed cloud services. “Rackspace customers who use Microsoft software tend to be looking for the ‘whole package,’” DeVerter added, “meaning they want a place to host their servers along with a partner who can work with them to ensure they run better here than anywhere else in the world.”
Microsoft has expressed its happiness with the deal. Marco Limena, vice president of Hosting Service Providers at Microsoft, said, “We are very excited about today’s news with Rackspace, as we build on our longstanding partnership, and look forward to working together over the coming years. In addition to support for Microsoft’s cloud services, Rackspace will also provide users with storage volumes, and dedicated storage arrays.
