August 8, 2011 — In the fourth session of the Technology and Operations track, Jim Curry, GM of Rackspace Cloud Builders, delivered his presentation, “Unlocking the Cloud — The Case for Open Standards”. Curry first gave a brief introduction to OpenStack, which is a next generation cloud operating system that transforms data centers into pools of resources.

July 14, 2011 — Managed backup and data recovery provider SecurStore announced on Thursday that it will use OpenStack and Rackspace Cloud Builders deployment for its cloud storage offerings.

Web Hosting – SAN ANTONIO – Rackspace® Hosting, the world’s leading specialist in the hosting and cloud computing industry, today announced the availability of Rackspace Cloud Load Balancers. Rackspace Cloud Load Balancers provides operational efficiency to customers, is easy to set up and provides seamless integration with Rackspace Cloud Servers™ or Rackspace dedicated servers

An illustration, from the Rackspace website, of Cloud Load Balancers in operation (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Managed and cloud hosting provider Rackspace ( www.rackspace.com ) announced on Tuesday that it has introduced its Cloud Load Balancers offering, a software-based, utility-priced load balancing product designed for use with its cloud hosting products, as well as its dedicated and managed server offerings. In private beta since Novmeber of 2010, and public beta since February of this year, Cloud Load Balancers, says Rackspace, is designed to alleviate the barriers to entry and architectural complexity associated with using third-party open source software load balancers. Based on that lengthy beta period, says Jerry Schwartz, enterprise services product manager at Rackspace, in an interview with the WHIR, the company incorporated a great deal of customer feedback into the development of its Cloud Load Balancers

A screen shot of the OpenStack control panel demo (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) –- Dell ( www.Dell.com/OpenStack ), Equinix ( www.Equinix.com/OpenStack ) and Rackspace Hosting ( www.rackspace.com/cloudbuilders ) announced on Thursday that they have partnered to develop an OpenStack cloud demonstration and test environment. The demo environment will be available in three data centers, located at the Equinix International Business Exchange in Silicon Valley, and Ashburn, Virginia, and the Rackspace data center in Chicago. The companies also plan to collaborate on additional demo environments in Equinix data centers in Europe and Asia in the second quarter of 2011.

Website Hosting News – SAN ANTONIO – Organizations deploying OpenStack™, the open source cloud operating system, can now receive formal service and support offerings from Rackspace® Hosting (NYSE: RAX), the world’s leading specialist in the hosting and cloud computing industry. Rackspace today announced Rackspace Cloud Builders, a new business that will offer training and certification, deployment services, and ongoing support to enterprises and service providers through its team of OpenStack experts and its network of technology industry leaders. For the first time, Rackspace will extend its commitment to customer service, known as Fanatical Support®, beyond the company’s datacenters to stand behind any OpenStack cloud deployment.

A screen shot of Rackspace’s partner program page (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Web hosting provider Rackspace Hosting ( www.rackspace.com ) announced on Tuesday it has improved its Rackspace Partner Program ( www.rackspace.com/partners ), which combines its four channel programs into one global partner experience. Rackspace’s newly structured partner channel program comes a year after it launched its partner program for resellers and affiliates . The program now provides partners with a range of additional hosted services, a centralized portal for relationship management, an integrated compensation structure and tiered benefits for different program levels.