Rackspace (NYSE: RAX), a large global cloud hosting services provider, has announced the next generation of its OnMetal Cloud Servers powered by OpenStack – bare metal, single-tenant servers that are API-provisioned “in two minutes, providing near-instant scalability and elasticity.”
This latest version of Rackspace’s OnMetal Cloud Servers would deliver innovative connectivity between public cloud and dedicated server hardware and enable unprecedented hybrid cloud performance. Both Microsoft and Linux workloads would now be enabled to benefit from these next generation capabilities by capitalizing on the flexibility of public cloud with the performance and security of bare metal servers.
According to Rackspace, OnMetal Cloud Servers are an ideal solution for customers looking to run workloads such as Cassandra, Docker, Spark and Windows that require intensive data processing, raw compute power and the ability to quickly scale and deploy.
This offering would give customers bare metal speed, with the control, security and consistent performance comparable to dedicated server hardware. The Rackspace OnMetal Cloud Servers would help increase efficiencies at scale, allowing customers to reduce the cost and complexity of their IT operations by consolidating workloads from many virtual environments to a few bare metal servers.
The next generation of Rackspace’s OnMetal Cloud Servers would deliver the following benefits and new features:
- Private and Secure Networking – Next generation of OnMetal Cloud Servers will integrate with Cloud Networks and RackConnect (available in the second quarter of 2016) to provide enhanced levels of secure networking across all the Rackspace servers and devices within the customer’s environment.
- Increased International Availability – Next generation OnMetal Cloud Servers are available internationally, with regional coverage across the US and UK, decreasing latency for customers around the globe.
- Improved Storage Capabilities – Next generation OnMetal Cloud Servers would be faster, higher capacity and more reliable than the first generation. The bare metal servers feature improvements of 250 percent in write performance, 40 percent in read performance and include up to 800 GB of local boot drive storage capacity. Also, they feature RAID 1 mirrored storage with two hot-swappable disks to improve uptime and help to reduce the risk of lost data.
- Hardware and Software Upgrades – Next generation OnMetal Cloud Servers are built on second-generation Open Compute servers, featuring the latest Intel Xeon E5-2600 v3 processors. Additionally, the next generation of OnMetal Cloud Servers offers an improved selection of guest images, with support for Windows available in the second quarter of 2016.
“Rackspace is leading the OpenStack market with unparalleled technical innovation and operational expertise. With the fastest deployment times in the industry and unmatched performance, OnMetal is the leading bare metal offering and the largest public deployment of OpenStack Ironic in the world,” said Paul Voccio, vice president, software development, at Rackspace. “With the combination of new features and performance capabilities in the next generation of OnMetal, it can be a solution for many customers seeking OpenStack as the platform to run their most demanding workloads.”
