Daily Archives: January 21, 2011

Rackspace® Hosting announced the launch of its cloud infrastructure to provide customers with a European based infrastructure for their cloud-based data footprint.

“Our US-based Rackspace cloud has already been hugely successful, with over 100,000 customers globally now taking advantage of our hosted cloud services,” said Lanham Napier, President and CEO, Rackspace. “Due to storage regulations set out under European law, many UK companies are restricted from using cloud. Our UK offering allows companies to avoid offshore data issues and weighty upfront capital investments which helps them become more strategically agile from a business perspective. We’re delighted to launch our UK cloud today and we already have over 500 customers in beta.”

The new UK cloud offerings include Rackspace Cloud Files, running on OpenStack™ Object Storage, and Cloud Servers, based on the Xen hypervisor. The new cloud platform joins the dedicated hosting platform already offered in EMEA.

Rackspace Cloud Files provides instantly scalable cloud-based storage, which is ideal for electronically storing items like backups, video files, or static user content. Rackspace opened its source code for Cloud Files to the public through the OpenStack™ project, an open source cloud computing project founded by Rackspace in July 2010. The OpenStack project was initiated to drive open cloud standards, so customers would not be locked into proprietary cloud software.

Rackspace Cloud Servers provide instant computing power, allowing customers to serve applications with flexibility and efficiency. Customers are able to deploy one or even dozens of cloud servers instantly, for as long or as little as they are required. Available in Windows and a variety of Linux distributions, Cloud Servers gives users full root access and control over their servers through either the Rackspace Cloud control panel, the Application Programming Interface (API), third party tools or Rackspace’s newly acquired Cloudkick subsidiary. Rackspace has already fully integrated the Cloudkick panel into the UK cloud offering so users can manage both US and UK cloud servers from one panel.

“Some industry analysts have stated that by 2012, 20% of organisations will no longer own an in- house IT infrastructure,” continued Napier. “Cloud computing enables this evolution in a cost- effective way; if customers on the cloud no longer need resources, they stop using them and almost immediately stop paying for them. This will be critical to companies still fighting to cut costs from their budgets, and will allow them to control spending more tightly than ever before. It is as a result of direct feedback from our existing and prospective customer base in Europe that we have brought the Rackspace cloud to Europe and built it out in our UK data centre. The Rackspace European cloud brings with it reduced latency for those customers and helps eradicate concerns over currency fluctuations and European data legislation compliance.”

“Running our own servers proved inefficient and costly. With Rackspace, our resources are freed up from managing hardware and we are now better equipped to cater to spikes in demand online,” said Ivan Retzignac, Founder at MedicAnimal.com. “We are also saving in excess of £100,000 a year, which can be invested in better services and solutions for our customers.”

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About Rackspace Hosting
Rackspace Hosting is the world’s leading specialist in hosting and cloud computing and has been ranked in Financial Times Top 50 Great Place to Work in the United Kingdom for the past six years. Rackspace provides Fanatical Support ® to its customers, across a portfolio of IT services, including Managed Hosting and Cloud Computing. For more information, visit www.rackspace.co.uk

Compushare, the largest nationwide Financial Technology Management Company, announced the acquisition of Virtual Empowerment, a Dallas based technology company who developed a platform to web enable legacy financial applications. Virtual Empowerment, using proprietary and industry-standard tools, technology and processes, specializes in allowing end users to access their financial applications through a secure cloud using any device including tablets and mobile phones. Providing this high level of application support will allow Compushare clients the flexibility to adopt cloud-delivered applications now and enjoy all the cost savings and technology efficiencies provided through the cloud.

James Ewing, Virtual Empowerment’s CEO, will join Compushare as a key member of its Product Development Team. Mr. Ewing has over 15 years of experience in Information Technology (IT) leadership and technology development with a focus on cloud-based hosted IT solutions and Data Center virtualization.

Romir Bosu, Compushare’s CEO, stated, “Historically, when Compushare has made acquisitions, we focused on acquiring companies that would allow Compushare to gain client and market presence. The decision to acquire Virtual Empowerment was based on their leading technology and expertise in designing platforms for hosted applications which will be beneficial to our clients as they move to next generation environments. It is our mission to provide our clients with best of breed solutions, and with the experience of James and his team, we are very well equipped to support and provide guidance for our clients while they make the transition into the fully hosted environments.”

“I was excited to find a company like Compushare who recognized the need to lead the financial industry in the move toward a hosted technology platform. Virtual Empowerment has had success in assisting companies deploy next generation architectures, but it is exciting to be able to take our expertise and join a growing national company and its hundreds of clients, helping clients realize the cost and efficiency benefits they can gain from a hosted platform,” stated James Ewing.

Compushare’s hosted financial application environment will be the first in the industry to offer GLBA certified shared and private clouds to the sector.

About Compushare

Compushare is the leading technology provider in the market place that truly applies an intimate understanding of the business processes, technology considerations and risk management concerns of financial services organizations. We offer a dedicated financial industry focus with more than 15 years of technology experience supporting over 800 clients nationwide.