Rackspace OpenStack Explained

Lanham Napier, CEO of Rackspace, recently participated in an interview with Computer World UK. Napier, along with NASA helped instigate the OpenStack project that was boldly launched last year. Formed from the idea of building a cloud out of a million physical machines, NASA was able to provide the code behind OpenStack Compute, one of the two main elements of OpenStack, while Rackspace supplied the other part, the code for OpenStack Object Storage. Rackspace and NASA's creation of a completely open cloud computing standard is based on the idea that you make money from giving stuff away by providing extra value around it. OpenStack is viewed as a way to grow the ecosystem in which it operates to give it more opportunities to make money from services.

"The former goes back 12 years to the heady days of the dotcom boom, when it helped companies gain quick access to this new-fangled Internet thing - quick being 24 hours rather than the usual six weeks that most offered. Over time, Rackspace has evolved from a company providing the basic infrastructure to one doing that plus services. Today, Rackspace is a public company and has an annual turnover of around $850 million."

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