The Open Infrastructure (OpenInfra) Foundation today announced that Rackspace Technology (NASDAQ:RXT), co-creator of OpenStack, the world’s most widely deployed open source cloud infrastructure software, has become its newest Platinum Member and has appointed Josh Villareal, general manager of OpenStack private and public cloud at Rackspace, to the OpenInfra Board of Directors. With this multi-year commitment, Rackspace will partner closely with the OpenInfra community to advance open source, OpenStack, and open infrastructure use cases around the world.

Rackspace recently reaffirmed its long-standing commitment to OpenStack with the launch of Rackspace OpenStack Enterprise, a fully managed, enterprise-ready cloud solution built from the ground up to ensure critical workloads are secure, efficient, and perform at scale. 

Rackspace has reinvigorated its OpenStack product line and launched a comprehensive product roadmap that includes frequent feature updates. The updates include a significant increase in upstream code contributions to the OpenStack community, aligning with Rackspace’s One OpenStack Strategy, which centers around using a single technology stream for its OpenStack products. This alignment ensures that customers can seamlessly leverage each of Rackspace’s OpenStack solutions without a technology barrier between each product.

Rackspace’s OpenStack investment legacy dates from the platform’s original creation in collaboration with NASA in 2010. To date, Rackspace has contributed more than 5.6 million lines of code to OpenStack and is one of the largest OpenStack cloud providers in the world. Its expertise includes over one billion server hours of experience operating production-ready OpenStack clouds at scale. The company currently operates more than 140 private OpenStack clouds and has 350,000 nodes under management by a dedicated team comprising more than 150 OpenStack experts and 50+ Kubernetes administrators.

In a presentation to the OpenInfra Foundation Board of Directors, Josh Villareal, general manager of OpenStack private and public cloud at Rackspace, said Rackspace believes in the longevity of Open Infrastructure and that becoming a Platinum Member is the best way to further that mission. 

“Rackspace believes in choice and in providing enterprises with open source alternatives to proprietary platforms, and we want OpenStack to be the premier choice among those options,” said Villareal. “Through our multi-year commitment to the OpenInfra Foundation we are signaling our reengagement with the open source community. We will be actively contributing to many OpenInfra projects and becoming a larger, more involved ambassador of OpenStack, leveraging our global presence and our network of ecosystem providers to advance the technology. We also have many VMware customers that are interested in shifting to an alternative approach, and we are eager to show them how OpenStack and Kubernetes can be a great solution for them.”

“As co-creator of OpenStack, Rackspace has already left an indelible mark on the world, and we couldn’t be more excited about the company’s decision to renew its wholehearted commitment to OpenStack and the OpenInfra community,” said Jonathan Bryce, executive director of the OpenInfra Foundation. “Over the past two years, Rackspace has reorganized internally around OpenStack and reinvigorated its OpenStack product line. Today, Rackspace is reengaging with the OpenInfra community and making its biggest commitment ever. This underscores the surge of OpenStack adoption we’re seeing and serves as a harbinger of the progress the community will make in the future.”
"The return of Rackspace to the OpenInfra community, as a Platinum member, demonstrates the success and value of OpenStack as the de facto cross-vendor open source cloud computing infrastructure platform,” said Julia Kreger, chair of the OpenInfra Foundation board of directors. “Rackspace's refocus heralds a new chapter for the OpenInfra community and its projects."

Rackspace Among International Leaders Supporting OpenInfra Foundation

Rackspace joins over 560 supporting organizations who are advancing the mission of building open source communities who write software that runs in production. Rackspace joins Platinum members Ant Group, Ericsson, Huawei, Microsoft, Okestro and Wind River to define the future of open source powered infrastructure.