Rackspaceis
installing a cloud computing capability on its UK servers to
provide British customers with faster access to applications that
need fast transaction speeds.
Announcing the move, John Engates, CTO at the hosted IT services
supplier, said many UK customers were already using the Rackpace's
cloud-based services in the US to host websites and for extra
capacity to cope with batch processing.
"But when they have to feed back to a big online transaction
processing system, the time delay in getting messages to and from
the US can cause problems," he said.
To shorten the time gap, or latency, Rackspace was installing
the same cloud software on its UK servers as it has in the US, he
said.
The upgrade, which will be complete by the end of the year,
means local users will have local access to Rackspace's cloud-based
application servers and data storage facilities.
Engates said this would also benefit firms who may not be
willing or able to transfer information to US servers because of
privacy concerns and/or regulations that govern cross-border data
transfers. "This move ensures complete privacy to local users and
their customers," Engates said.
It would also help firms that prefer a non-US internet address
as a way to optimise their standing with internet search engines,
he said.
The new service would also include support for the complete
Windows platform, he said. This would give customers greater
flexibility in scaling headcounts to meet business needs, he
added.