infoTECH Feature

September 23, 2008

Rackspace: Platform Hosting Gives Control and Security to IT Infrastructure

Platform hosting gives customers the control and flexibility to manage their IT hosting environment including equipment, network infrastructure and data center. This facility removes the time-consuming, costly efforts of infrastructure management.
 
Rackspace, a hosting services provider, recently announced the launch of their new platform hosting service. With the new Rackspace Platform Hosting, the company promises a managed hosting solution, giving its customers full control over managing their technology environment.
 
Technology Marketing Company (TMC (News - Alert)) caught up with Rackspace’s CTO, John Engates, to gain a deeper understanding of the technology and its benefits.
 
TMC: What is Rackspace Platform Hosting?
 
JE: Platform Hosting is a compelling alternative to collocation. Rackspace provides the physical data center, network infrastructure, servers, and other devices needed by the customer. The customer retains full control and manages the day-to-day administrative responsibility of their hosting environment, including the operating system, networking devices, monitoring, backups and applications. This offering gives customers that require more control and flexibility the ability to administer their environment, without the burden of managing the hardware and data center infrastructure.
 
TMC: How does Rackspace Platform Hosting differ from the managed hosting service offered by Rackspace?
 
JE: Rackspace Platform Hosting bridges the gap between the flexibility you get with do-it-yourself hosting and the convenience of a Managed Hosting solution.  With Managed Hosting, Rackspace’s certified experts design, implement, manage and maintain the Customer’s hosting configuration. This includes patching, maintenance, troubleshooting of OS, HW and supported applications/services. With Platform Hosting, Rackspace is still responsible for all physical elements of the data center, network infrastructure and hardware and the customer is responsible for day-to-day administration and management of the technology (from the OS up). Platform allows the customer to maintain full control over managing their technology environment.
 
TMC: What is the key benefit of the service?
 
JE: Rackspace’s Platform Hosting supports the customer with its 100 percent Network Uptime Guarantee and one-hour hardware replacement guarantee. Customers have access 24x7x365 to a dedicated Support Team to handle their infrastructure needs. Unlike collocation, the customer does not need to deal with hardware vendors or maintain a physical presence near their collocation facility.
 
TMC: How does it ensure data security and reliability to the data center?
 
JE: Platform Hosting utilizes the same data center that Managed Hosting customers have come to rely on from Rackspace; we engineered them to never compromise security or redundancy.
 
Physical Security
·    Keycard protocols, biometric scanning protocols and round-the-clock interior and exterior surveillance monitor access to every one of our data centers.
·    Only authorized data center personnel are granted access credentials to our data centers.
·    Every data center employee undergoes multiple and thorough background security checks before they're hired.
 
Precision Environment
·    Every data center's HVAC (Heating Ventilation Air Conditioning) system is N+1 redundant.
·    Every 90 seconds, all the air in our data centers are circulated and filtered to remove dust and contaminants.
·    Our advanced fire suppression systems are designed to stop fires from spreading in the unlikely event one should occur.
 
Conditioned Power
·    Should a total utility power outage ever occur, all of our data centers' power systems are designed to run uninterrupted, with every server receiving conditioned UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) power.
·    Our UPS power subsystem is N+1 redundant, with instantaneous failover if the primary UPS fails.
·    If an extended utility power outage occurs, our routinely tested, on-site diesel generators can run indefinitely.
 
TMC: What motivated you to develop this new hosting service?
 
JE: At Rackspace, we recognize that each customer may require different levels of service, so our goal has been to create options for each Customer’s needs. With Platform Hosting, we wanted to give the customers that have a high degree of in-house technology expertise a choice to take control over their operating system and application infrastructure, without worrying about the equipment and the physical infrastructure. 
 
TMC: What categories of customers are you targeting? Who will benefit from this technology the most?
 
JE: Platform Hosting is a higher value alternative to customers that currently host in collocation or in-house, but are frustrated with the hassle of managing the data center infrastructure and hardware supply chain. These companies generally have a significant level of internal expertise and the capability to support their environment 24x7, but see little value in maintaining the physical assets associated with hosting.
 
TMC: While platform hosting reduces the efforts of the company, what about the cost incurred in the service?
 
JE: Customers will find a very competitive Total Cost of Ownership in Platform Hosting versus collocation or in-house. Combined with Rackspace’s service level agreements, the Rackspace Data Center, the Rackspace Zero Downtime Network and the dedicated Fanatical Support Team, customers will receive significant value for their hosting expenditure.
 
TMC: What is the impact of the technology on your customer’s revenue?
 
JE: Customers can focus their resources and expertise towards activities that generate growth in their business and leave the low value activities and burden of equipment and infrastructure management to Rackspace.
 
TMC: How do you expect the new product to contribute to your company’s profit? Is there a target set?
 
JE: Platform Hosting provides Rackspace access to the collocation market. According to Tier1 Research, the collocation market is estimated to be around $5.5 billion in 2008 and is projected to grow at 19 percent through 2010. This market presents tremendous growth opportunity for Rackspace.   
 
TMC: What is the potential in the managed hosting services market? How has it grown over the past years?
 
JE: As of last year, Tier1 Research projected the worldwide hosting market to be around $12.3 billion with about a 26 percent growth rate over the next four years. In general, most of the customers in the Managed Hosting segment rely on the breadth and depth of services provided by a fully managed hosting provider, like Rackspace.  However, there is a segment of the market that has significant in-house technical expertise and can use Platform Hosting to leverage their expertise while leaving the low value infrastructure management activities with a provider. 
 
TMC: Does Rackspace Platform Hosting service offer Rackspace Fanatical Support Promise? If so, how? 

JE: Of course!  Fanatical Support is a key offering to all Rackspace customers.  Additionally, for Platform users, we have a dedicated safety net – our Platform Hosting Support Team – ready to help out with any challenges our customers might face in managing their supply chain and infrastructure.  
 
TMC: What are your marketing strategies to position Rackspace Platform hosting in the market?
 
JE: Rackspace currently receives a tremendous amount of requests for collocation solutions that are not a strong fit for the traditional Managed Hosting service. Platform Hosting will allow Rackspace to provide a higher value alternative to collocation for these customers.  In addition, Rackspace is working closely with its partners to combine services with the Platform Hosting offering.
 
Don’t forget to check out TMCnet’s White Paper Library, which provides a selection of in-depth information on relevant topics affecting the IP Communications industry. The library offers white papers, case studies and other documents which are free to registered users. Today’s featured white paper is Fixed Service Strategies for Mobile Network Operators, brought to you by Comverse (News - Alert).

Rajani Baburajan is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Rajani's articles, please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Michelle Robart
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