By Liam Eagle, theWHIR.com
May 30, 2008 — (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — IT service and hosting company Rackspace (rackspace.com), formerly of the “managed hosting” handle, said this week that it has added a new product to its self service portfolio with the launch of its enhanced Firewall Control Panel.
The company says the FWCP enables a customer running a Rackspace managed firewall to control their envronment’s security settings “easily and efficiently.” It can be used to add or delete firewall rules, or to monitor and change existing rules. According to the announcement, the FWCP will be distributed to US and EMEA customers through the MyRackspace customer portal.
“Rackspace is known for the service it provides all customers through fanatical support, and this is just another way for Rackspace to exemplify this. Our customers have been asking for a more hands-on approach to managing their configuration settings, and this easy to use control panel is another step toward helping our customers become more self-sufficient,” said John Engates, chief technology officer, Rackspace Hosting, in a lengthy quote included in the press release. “Account teams will still be accessible 24/7/365, but with the Firewall Control Panel, customers may not need to call in certain situations; it is up to them. They can just log in to their firewall and make the adjustments they see necessary. The Firewall Control Panel gives our customers more control over their environment’s security through self-service, offering greater efficiency in managing their firewall configurations.”
Rackspace says the FWCP is the latest addition to an existing list of self-service applications offered through the company’s customer portal. The self-service services include DNS configuration, mail account administration and SSL certificate management.
The company also provides a set of self-service features to customers of its Dedicated Virtual Server solution, including the ability to turn virtual machines on and off, snapshot management and the ability to view CPU, disk and memory on their virtual machines.
Contributing simultaneously to two of the fastest-moving ongoing trends in the hosting news, those being the flood of data center building and the popularity of “green” endeavors, Rackspace announced last week that it is building a “green” hosting facility in Slough in the UK.
