Rackspace launches cloud infrastructure in Europe

Rackspace Hosting has launched its cloud infrastructure to provide customers with a European-based infrastructure for their cloud-based data footprint.

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 the EMEA region.

Rackspace Cloud Files provides instantly scalable cloud-based storage, which is well-suited 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 started by the company 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. Available in Windows and a variety of Linux distributions, Cloud Servers allows customers to deploy one or even dozens of cloud servers instantly, for as long or as little as they are required.