By samdizzy

Rackspace Cloud Tools Marketplace

In some ways, Rackspace Cloud Tools Marketplace resembles a cloud aggregator service — allowing customers and partners to purchase a range of cloud solutions from a single portal. (Other cloud aggregators, for instance, include the Ingram Micro Cloud marketplace.)

But in other ways, Rackspace Cloud Tools Marketplace is more of an online showroom, offering some background information about third-party cloud services, and then linking visitors to those third-party websites for potential purchase opportunities, noted Ven Shanmugam, Rackspace’s senior manager of strategy and corporate development.

Cloud Ecosystem Plus OpenStack

Rackspace’s ultimate goal: Create and expand an ecosystem where cloud software developers can promote solutions to customers. And ideally, those developers and customers will embrace OpenStack — an open source cloud platform — as part of the overall solution.

Rackspace’s cloud already runs on OpenStack, and many third-party businesses and service providers are evaluating or rolling out OpenStack-based clouds now. Rackspace has been promoting OpenStack-based clouds as open alternatives to Amazon Web Services (AWS), Windows Azure and other public clouds.

On the channel front, partners like VARs and MSPs need help sourcing, organizing and managing multiple third-party cloud services. Once a business has four or more cloud services, integration and management challenges can grow exponentially, Gartner VP Tiffani Bova noted at the Ingram Micro Cloud Summit in June.

What’s In the Rackspace Cloud Tools Marketplace?

Perhaps the Rackspace Cloud Tools Marketplace can assist those channel partner efforts. The marketplace offers partners and customers a look at the following services (among others):

According to a prepared statement:

That sounds like the start of something big.

Is it? Talkin’ Cloud is watching…