Cloud computing technology has matured significantly over the years, and now offers a compelling list of advantages over on-site deployments, especially for small businesses and start-ups that may not have the capital to purchase servers and other hardware appliances.
Even as federal agencies have been warming to the opportunities that commercial cloud service providers can offer, the transition is gradual, as government IT officials continue to express concerns about service agreements and turning over sensitive applications to outside vendors.
Rackspace will help enterprises build private clouds using the OpenStack cloud operating system, the company announced Tuesday. Meanwhile, Dell is seeking enterprises and service providers for proof-of-concept OpenStack trials with its Dell PowerEdge C family of servers.