Cloud computing firm Rackspace Hosting has been selected by pizza delivery company Domino’s Pizza to provide them with an integrated cloud hosting and dedicated managed hosting service ‘RackConnect’

The service will give Domino’s a scalable and cost-effective platform that will support the execution of the company’s growth strategy.

The pizza company has selected the hosting service to meet the evolving demands of its online business, and allow its internal IT team to focus more on innovation rather than maintenance of its online properties and business applications.

According to Domino IT director Colin Rees, the RackConnect offering will offer high level of security and configurability that dedicated managed hosting affords a business, and the scalability of cloud hosting, as their online presence is increasing.

RackConnect will enable Domino’s to select which applications are placed where in the managed hosting infrastructure, while the Domino’s will also be benefitted from the on-demand scalability of The Rackspace Cloud for developing new smartphone or tablet applications.

Rackspace SVP International David Kelly said Domino’s Pizza is paving the way when it comes to effective e-commerce and engaging with customers online in a wide variety of ways, such as through social media or smartphone and tablet apps.

Hosted applications will include the public-facing ecommerce site www.dominos.co.uk, as well as the online payment gateway, corporate email and back-office systems, and the company intranet.

Rackspace said the new hosting platform is likely to go live in September 2011.