Cloud computing company Rackspace (RAX) is rolling out a new DevOps automation service to assist developers and IT departments with the time to market for their products and features.

The DevOps Automation Service, which will be an addition to the company's Fanatical Support offering, enables IT departments and developers to deploy, scale and test new configurations in hours rather than days, the company said, pointing out that the service will also "help improve the quality of software deployments," as well as increase the amount of software releases.

Rackspace Product Director Jonathan Siegel told Talkin' Cloud in an interview that Rackspace needed to develop this service because "DevOps Automation is at an all time high due to the need for companies to increase velocity and the shortage of qualified operations talent that understands DevOps tools and methodologies."

"Typically, this type of talent cannot be recruited out of colleges and universities, and therefore must be created on the job," he said. "We believe it is part of our role in the industry to fill this gap."

While Rackspace plans to manage the service, Siegel noted that "customers are looking to a range of business partners to help them evolve their business through automation with DevOps tools.

"Rackspace will provide the ongoing support for automated environments, but customers will still need professional services for application migration, organizational change management, and business process design services," he said.

He went on to say that as the industry changes, "many different vendors will be involved in the transition that enables customers to grow faster on hybrid cloud infrastructure."

Anyone interested in the service can visit the Rackspace website for more details.