Rackspace launches cloud infrastructure in Europe

LONDON, UK: Hosting services provider Rackspace Hosting announced the launch of its cloud infrastructure in Europe.

Lanham Napier, president and CEO, Rackspace, said: “Our US-based Rackspace cloud has already been hugely successful, with over 100,000 customers globally now taking advantage of our hosted cloud services. 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."

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 says that its Cloud Files provides instantly scalable cloud-based storage, which is ideal for electronically storing items like back-ups, 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.