Rackspace Acquires Cloudkick

Cloudkick's tools will combine with the company's Fanatical Support to further the benefits of cloud computing.

Rackspace Hosting, a web hosting company, today announced its acquisition of Cloudkick, a provider of web applications for easy and efficient cloud-server management. The company mentions that Cloudkick offers what amounts to a cockpit for navigating complex cloud environments, with all the information and controls in one elegant, convenient panel to help developers and system administrators deploy and manage their cloud environments.

It articulates that a two-year-old startup initially funded by Y Combinator and based in San Francisco, Cloudkick serves more than 1,500 businesses from Fortune 500 enterprises to nimble startups - and has seen more than 1 million servers pass through its tools. Cloudkick helps its customers manage and monitor their servers across multiple providers from a single dashboard - no matter how large or complex the deployment. That dashboard lets customers manage a hybrid infrastructure, across both multi-tenant virtualized servers and dedicated hardware. The company adds that in the two years since its launch, Cloudkick has grown rapidly and is working with well-known companies such as Mozilla and National Instruments. Cloudkick has been an active member of the OpenStack community, an open-source cloud project founded by the company, and will continue to serve as an excellent option to monitor and manage OpenStack clouds.

It states that it has in recent years extended its services to cloud computing and hybrid hosting. Earlier this week, it defined a new category of hosting, managed cloud, which offers a new level of Fanatical Support to business users of cloud computing. It expects its acquisition of Cloudkick to enable it to deliver even better support through superior management tools that will be available directly to customers and also to the Rackers who serve them. The company will also broaden its presence in the San Francisco Bay Area, making Cloudkick's headquarters the latest outpost for delivering Fanatical Support and innovation in cloud computing.

"Until now, the cloud has been about automating hardware and making it more agile and efficient," said Lew Moorman, Chief Strategy Officer of Rackspace. "But as cloud computing has made it easier to launch servers, companies launch a lot more of them, and use many of them inefficiently - and even lose track of some. Cloudkick brings order to that chaos and sprawl. It takes cloud computing to a new level: into automation of the work of system administrators. In addition to providing robust cloud health information, Cloudkick enables automation around deployment and scaling. It makes cloud computing more powerful, with less expense."

"Bringing Cloudkick into the Rackspace fold, and integrating its expertise into our own, is a bold step toward ensuring Rackspace's position as the leading global cloud provider for years to come," added Moorman. "As we continue to deliver Fanatical Support in all that we do, Rackspace now has expanded its team and offerings to make managing IT infrastructure more seamless across various platforms."

"We built Cloudkick to make the lives of system administrators easier," said Alex Polvi, Founder of Cloudkick. "With the support of Rackspace we look forward to fulfilling our vision, while getting our tools directly into the hands of customers as they adopt cloud computing."

"Y Combinator has funded a lot of startups, but it was clear from early on that Cloudkick was going to be one of the big winners. They're a layer of the cloud computing infrastructure that practically everyone needs," said Paul Graham, Partner of Y Combinator. "Rackspace plus Cloudkick should be a good match, thanks to Cloudkick's service focus and dedication to the open-source community, and Rackspace's market reach."