Rackspace Reignites Commitment to OpenStack with New Enterprise Offering

The open source OpenStack cloud platform got its start back in 2010 as a joint effort between NASA and Rackspace.

Interest in OpenStack over the years has ebbed and flowed as users and contributors have joined the effort. Rackspace has been a cornerstone the whole time and is now aiming to reinvigorate its long-standing support. This week, Rackspace launched a new OpenStack Enterprise private cloud service with the goal of giving customers a more comprehensive and flexible solution.

"We've never walked away from OpenStack," Josh Villarreal, general manager for OpenStack at Rackspace, told ITPro Today. "But we're now taking a renewed approach, focusing not just on the core OpenStack software, but building out a more complete package for our customers."

Enhancing the OpenStack Experience

The new Rackspace OpenStack Enterprise service goes beyond just the OpenStack infrastructure layer, with Rackspace adding a suite of complementary tools and services to create a more turnkey private cloud experience.

"We're adding some additional ancillary products to really complement the user experience that customers would have," Villarreal explained. "Things like virtual machine management, security essentials, cloud backup, and migration capabilities — all bundled together to give a more comprehensive solution."

Related:OpenStack Caracal Release Focuses on AI, Performance, Security

Rackspace has also developed a new dashboard called Skyline to provide customers with a centralized view and management of their OpenStack environment.

"Whereas before, we just supported the core OpenStack layer, now we're getting a more full package for a private cloud experience," Villarreal said. "We're trying to remove the complexity barrier so customers don't have to be OpenStack experts to benefit from the technology."

Flexible Deployment Options

A key differentiator of Rackspace OpenStack Enterprise is the flexibility it offers in terms of deployment options. Customers can choose to have the private cloud hosted in a Rackspace data center, deployed in their own or a third-party facility, or even have Rackspace ship hardware directly to the customer's location.

"We will also ship hardware to customers' locations, whether it's a colocation facility or their own on-premises data center," Villarreal explained. "So we're very flexible on where we can deploy this private cloud solution, not just in a Rackspace data center."

This allows customers to leverage OpenStack in a way that best fits their infrastructure and operational needs, rather than being limited to a single deployment model.

How One Cloud Service Provider Is Using Rackspace OpenStack

Among Rackspace's current customers is EVEO, a cloud service provider in Brazil.

Mario Fedato, director of technology at EVEO, explained to ITPro Today that his company is using OpenStack to enable a Software Defined Data Center. In that setup, organizations buy a pool of resources from EVEO. Those organizations will then either resell those resources as virtual machines (VMs) to their customers to consume or host their applications or solutions.

"The reason to choose Rackspace, apart from being part of the OpenStack team, is the quality of their fanatical support, and we've already experienced that, as well as Rackspace invented the solution and have all the team and qualifications to support the solution," Fedato said. "OpenStack represents a good share of our revenue, and I couldn’t trust anyone else with that share."

OpenStack's Place in a Shifting Cloud Landscape

The opportunity for OpenStack is particularly poignant at this point in 2024.

"The infrastructure software market has seen quite a shake-up post Broadcom's VMware acquisition," Naveen Chhabra, principal analyst at Forrester, told ITPro Today. "As a result, tech leaders are exploring alternatives to their existing VMware investments."

Chhabra noted that there are many OpenStack distributions available, and firms have experimented with it over the past decade. In his view, Rackspace is now bringing one to the market at the most opportune time.

"However, for Rackspace to win, it must make sure its offering is easy to build, run, and manage," Chhabra said.