Rackspace has revealed a plan to integrate the open source, Apache-based cloud platform OpenStack into the data centres of service providers and telcom companies to help them offer their customers cloud services.
As part of the plan, the company will provide hardware and the OpenStack cloud operating system software for building out cloud infrastructure.
The OpenStack deployments will allow the users of one provider to use another service provider’s cloud infrastructure to perform the workloads in different global locations.
Rackspace strategy director Scott Sanchez said that the company is getting into the business of helping large service providers become cloud providers. "We’re taking all of our accumulated knowledge around how to be a successful cloud provider and we’re delivering that to service providers around the world," Sanchez said.
According to the company, it will supply servers with pre-installed copies of OpenStack, or will install OpenStack and supporting software on servers provided by the service providers.
The company will provide support services to the deployments complying with service level agreements (SLA) between Rackspace and the service provider, while offering sales, support training and engineering level support.