Rackspace Launches Data Center Colocation Service

Rackspace has launched a data center colocation business, offering space, power, and network connectivity for customers’ own hardware in 10 locations around the world.

The company is positioning colocation as a way for customers to bridge the gap between running applications in their internal data centers and outsourcing their technology infrastructure to managed hosting and cloud providers. Managed hosting and cloud are the Windcrest, Texas-based company’s primary focus, and it expects customers who move their on-premises systems to its colocation facilities to use its services to get to the next stage.

Rackspace wants to be “the sole partner [customers] will need in the long-term to migrate to and manage their public cloud, private cloud, managed hosting, or bare metal platforms,” Henry Tran, general manager of managed hosting at Rackspace, said in a statement.

Customers aren’t limited to colocation in Rackspace facilities only. In April, the company announced a partnership with Switch, offering its services packaged with colocation space in Switch data centers around the US.

As enterprises seek to cut costs and place more focus on their core businesses, more and more of them outsource the task of managing data centers to colocation providers. Increasingly, colocation facilities are also becoming places where companies connect their enterprise networks to public cloud providers via private network links, making these facilities strategically important for their businesses.

Related:From Managed Servers to Managed Cloud – the Pivots of Rackspace

Citing 451 Research, Rackspace said the colocation market is expected to grow 12 percent per year between now and 2020.

Rackspace, which started as a hosting company, over the recent years has carved out a leading spot in the market as a managed cloud provider, helping clients set up and manage their cloud infrastructure, be it on Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud Platform.

Its new carrier-neutral colocation services are available in:

The company didn’t specify how much space and power it has available for prospective colocation customers in those locations.

After operating as a public company for about eight years, Rackspace went private in 2016, acquired by Apollo Global Management. Earlier this year, a report surfaced saying Apollo was considering a second Rackspace IPO.