In a bid to be recognized as providers of a "one-stop-cloud-shop," Rackspace Hosting and Akamai have brought their respective cloud hosting and cloud optimization services together under a new partnership agreement. The joint offering has been undertaken to allow Rackspace to offer Akamai’s web acceleration and cloud optimization services as part of its normal dedicated and cloud hosting portfolio.
Rackspace says it will now work to integrate key Akamai services into its stack such as CNAME Canonical Name Records, Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) technology and CDN delivery for Cloud Files — the latter being a Rackspace service that provides scalable online storage for files and media. With the additional option for Rackspace to resell a range of Akamai site and application acceleration services to its customers, the company tenders this total proposition as a one-stop-shop for hosting, cloud and acceleration services for web content and applications.
“The next decade presents new opportunities in cloud computing, especially around feature-rich content, SaaS applications and dynamic websites,” said Lew Moorman, president, cloud and chief strategy officer for Rackspace. “Having independently served hundreds of Akamai’s customers, we are excited to streamline the customer experience on dedicated and cloud platforms with the leading cloud optimization services provider, all backed by our trademark Fanatical Support.”
Rackspace says that its is integrating Akamai's services into its product portfolio to addresses what the company defines as four common challenges faced by companies moving their businesses into the cloud or into hosted environments: latency, availability, scalability and security. As some justification for this assertion, Rackspace points to Akamai's techniques for reducing latency and providing for high availability in the cloud, which leveraging more than 77,000 servers located in 71 countries.
As a company that seeks to woo customers with a promise of its somewhat boldly named Fanatical Support services, Rackspace will include Akamai solutions, either as an add-on or as an embedded suite of services as part of its full range of offerings across dedicated, cloud and hybrid hosting.
