Rackspace Ups its Game with More Open Cloud Features

For a little over a decade, Rackspace has been working with developers and other web professionals to make the web a better place through simplified data management systems and open standards. They have built a reputation around offering what some would call over-the-top customer service. Rackspace has actually labeled it “Fanatical Support.”

In recent years, the open source infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) company has been making strides in the data management simplification space. They have made several lists as one of the most influential open source cloud computing companies in the game. In fact, with their recent unveiling of Open Cloud, they’re making life easier for web developers all over the globe.

To be clear, it’s not that the Rackspace platform hasn’t been developer-friendly, but with these new enhancements to their cloud offerings, developers can have the powerful infrastructure needed to build and deploy dynamic web apps in the cloud.

What is Open Cloud?

If you were to ask a cloud computing industry analyst, they would probably tell you that the Open Cloud is a little hard to quantify. In very basic terms, Open Cloud technology allows cloud developers to easily replace – either hardware or software – components in their cloud system. One of the biggest benefits of the Open Cloud platform is that companies are no longer plagued by the reality of vendor lock-in. They can operate independent of a specific vendor. Many argue that companies can buy a small army of cloud data management professionals for what it would cost to use some large cloud computing providers.

How Open Cloud Benefits Developers?

For starters, Open Cloud offers a high level of portability. For instance, the reason many companies are locked into vendor agreements is because migrating data to a new vendor is impossibly expensive. These companies would have to manually migrate all of their data and risk losing millions upon millions spent on licensing fees for cloud providers like Oracle, Amazon and Google.

Secondly, Open Cloud puts the power of development back into the hands of developers—where it belongs. For instance, developers can easily direct how their web apps and software products are being deployed. They don’t have to worry if their apps are being delivered to their specifications because Open Cloud gives them complete control over the entire process.

Also, these same developers will have early enough access to code and APIs so that they can adequately prepare for a sight or application launch.

The other piece of this is the massive community supporting the Open Cloud through Rackspace. Developers have access to a community of other smart developers who are building on what’s already been established in the Open Cloud platform.

Through the enhancements found in Rackspace’s Open Cloud, developers can rest assured that the success or failure of an application or product launch is in their hands. They don’t have to rely on a vendor to make sure applications are running at optimal speed or performance. This is likely to transform the way developers interact with their products in the cloud.