Managed multitenant cloud infrastructure is giving enterprises another way to modernize VMware environments without buying and operating additional hardware. Rackspace Technology Inc. has launched Rackspace Cloud, a fully managed platform built on VMware Cloud Foundation 9.1.
The service supplies elastic capacity for virtual machines, Kubernetes and graphics processing unit workloads within one governed environment. The company is among the first providers to offer a fully managed multitenant cloud on VCF 9.1 and one of a limited group of Broadcom Advantage Partners able to deliver VCF-based managed cloud services, according to Rackspace.
“The same platform that has been running [customers’] traditional VMs can now also run Kubernetes for them and can also run GPUs to help with their AI workloads,” said Josh Prewitt (pictured), senior vice president of private cloud at Rackspace. “And we do it all in a multitenant environment.”
Prewitt spoke with theCUBE Research’s Christophe Bertrand and co-host Alison Kosik at VMware Explore, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed infrastructure procurement, operational complexity and governance as enterprises move artificial intelligence projects into production. (* Disclosure below.)
Managed multitenant cloud brings AI under one control plane
Rackspace’s infrastructure allows customers to add or reduce capacity while gaining access to the control plane without paying for an entire environment upfront. Customers can choose dedicated hosts or shared infrastructure based on workload requirements, according to Prewitt.
“No longer are [customers] talking procurement cycles of months; they’re talking about spinning it up within a couple of hours because we already have pre-staged infrastructure,” he said. “And then beyond that, we take all the operational requirements from it, all of the monitoring, all of the day-to-day maintenance of these environments, and we let them offload that to us.”
That managed multitenant cloud model targets regulated industries seeking to keep sensitive information and intellectual property within controlled infrastructure. It also extends the broader push to run virtual machines, containers and production AI on a unified private cloud instead of building a separate technology stack.
“Compliance and security have to be baked into everything that we do,” Prewitt said. “For a lot of the workloads that we run, uptime really means lives. It’s absolutely critical.”
Here’s the complete video interview, part of theCUBE’s coverage of VMware Explore:
(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the VMware Explore event. Sponsors of theCUBE’s event coverage do not have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)