RightScale, Equinix Partner on Cloud Services update from February 2012

equinix-tokyo

A data hall in an Equinix data center in Tokyo. Equinix today launched a partnership with RightScale to boost hybrid cloud deployments that combine private and public clouds. (Source: Equinix)

In a blue-chip partnership targeting the intersection of colocation and the cloud, data center service provider Equinix and cloud computing specialist RightScale are helping customers connect private clouds with large-scale public clouds, along with access to leading cloud management tools.

RightScale and Equinix (EQIX) today announced their cloud package for corporations and service providers that both increases the speed and reliability of developing and managing automated clouds. With this partnership, the RightScale Cloud Management Platform will provide Platform Equinix customers with a comprehensive management offering for all cloud infrastructure ― including public, private and multi-cloud/hybrid clouds — managed and controlled through a single cloud service.

The partnership provides RightScale with access to thousands of enterprise customers of Equinix, which operates data centers in 38 markets across 13 countries in the Americas, Europe/Middle East/Africa, and Asia-Pacific. Equinix already offers connections to major public clouds such as Amazon Web Services.

"The partnership allows customers who want cloud environments to build from the ground-up - rack and stack - RightScale-ready clouds in Equinix data centers, or for existing Equinix customers to use RightScale to manage clouds they already have in Equinix facilities," said Josh Fraser, Senior Vice President, RightScale.

“Unlike other offerings, this partnership allows IT teams and service providers to increase the speed and reliability of delivering comprehensive cloud environments, particularly for those organizations with high data security and compliance needs or for those looking for increased performance for specific applications," Fraser added. The Equinix partnership provides wide geographical distribution and the ability for any workload that has compliance issues, data residency needs or big data challenges to leverage cloud benefits without associated risks, according to Fraser.

Spanning The Clouds

RightScale cloud management enables organizations to easily deploy and manage business-critical applications across public, private and hybrid clouds. Since 2006, millions of servers have been launched with the RightScale tools by enterprises including the Associated Press, CBS Interactive, Intercontinental Hotels Group, PBS, and Zynga.

"There have been customer needs driving this (partnership)," said Fraser. "We are seeing more and more demand for hybrid cloud solutions."

He said he expects the uptick in interest in the new cloud package to be quite substantial. RightScale has existing customers in social applications, rich media, high-performance computing, pharma, media and entertainment. We have joint, existing customers already running on this solution, Fraser said.