Rackspace, Unisys Launch Private Cloud Services

Unisys and Rackspace rolled out private cloud offerings that combine cloud computing efficiencies, potential cost savings, and scalability, with the convenience and security of managed hosting services, at the Gartner Data Center Conference in Las Vegas this week.

The Unisys Hosted Secure Private Cloud offers customers a cloud infrastructure that is deployed and managed remotely. Customers retain control over computing resources but still have the on-demand provisioning and automation capabilities of the cloud, Unisys said.

Rackspace approached the integration somewhat differently — its Cloud Connect service is a private network that connects the customer’s applications and systems running on the company’s public cloud with the systems running on its managed hosting service. Cloud Connect essentially expands the managed hosting service by letting customers access cloud resources seamlessly, Rackspace said.

Organizations look to cloud computing for the "cost-efficiency" and flexibility of tapping into more IT resources, but they tend to prefer a private cloud for the "enhanced security and control," said Sam Gross, vice-president of global IT outsourcing at Unisys.

In private clouds, the hardware is dedicated to a specific organization, not shared across multiple customers, as is the case with a public cloud infrastructure. With the Unisys private cloud, computing, storage, network and middleware resources are dedicated to each customer, but customers can use automation tools to add virtual and physical hosts on-demand to their private cloud, according to the company.

Provisioning "typically occurs within one hour," said Alan Bender, global manager of Secure Cloud at Unisys.

Unisys Hosted Secure Private cloud will be managed in a Unisys client services center, and each cloud infrastructure will be managed through the Unisys Converged Remote Infrastructure Management Suite, Unisys said.

For more, read the eWeek article: Unisys, Rackspace Launch Private Cloud Services.