By David Hamilton, theWHIR.com
October 23, 2008 — (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — In support of its new cloud hosting strategy, Rackspace Hosting (www.rackspace.com) has acquired virtual private server provider Slicehost (www.slicehost.com) and cloud storage provider Jungle Disk (www.jungledisk.com), further extending the company’s technology and services to cloud hosting lead by its scalable file storage product called CloudFiles.
According to the company’s Wednesday announcement at PBS’s Austin City Limits stage, the purchase price of the combined acquisitions is approximately $11.5 million, with a potential for up to $16.5 million in additional payouts of cash and stock based on performance criteria. Rackspace has also established relationships with content delivery network Limelight Networks, (www.limelightnetworks.com) and cloud email archiving firm Sonian Networks (www.sonian.net) to add additional service offerings.
Rackspace’s flagship cloud product, Hosting Cloud has now been rebranded Cloud Sites, and CloudFS renamed Cloud Files, reflecting the company’s newly integrated approach. Cloud Files’ enterprise-grade storage infrastructure has been given significant improvements, offering infinite scalability and decreasing overall cost with replicated storage starting at $0.15 per GB.
Limelight Networks and Rackspace are planing to create Cloud File features later this year that will allow developers to easily distribute content to millions of end users via the Limelight CDN. Also, Jungle Disk’s Amazon-based storage service will port to Rackspace’s Cloud Files system in the coming months.
Rackspace has also launched its new hosting solution Cloud Servers which will deliver on-demand server capacity by incorporating provisioning technologies developed by Slicehost using open-source virtualization software Xen (www.xen.org).
“Being a leader in hosting means being a leader in the cloud,” Rackspace chief executive officer Lanham Napier said in a statement. “Today, we made clear our intent to have the best suite of cloud offerings. Our new offerings are part of a strategy to bring cloud benefits to all businesses with simple, cost-effective products that everyone can use, backed by the best customer support that only Rackspace can deliver.”
Rackspace said it is quickly accumulating one of the most comprehensive hosting solution suites ranging from dedicated managed servers and hosted email solutions to highly scalable cloud hosting and storage services to provide IT departments and small businesses a full range of tools.
Other companies have also expressed an interest in Rackspace’s cloud suite including cloud-based service providers RightScale, CohesiveFT, rPath, SOASTA and Vertica. Sonian Networks and Rackspace’s email hosting division Mailtrust, have reached an agreement to offer economical archiving to Mailtrust’s more than 100,000 business domains. Sonian Networks will also port to the Rackspace cloud suite.
