Rackspace Expands Cloud Reach to MSPs through Arrow Distribution Partnership

Rackspace is extending the reach of its managed cloud services portfolio through a key partnership agreement with Arrow Electronics for the U.S. and Canada. The agreement gives Arrow solution providers access to Rackspace’s reseller program, which includes discounts for volume, helpdesk and financing services and pre- and post-sales support.

In return, Rackspace will enjoy wider distribution of its managed cloud services portfolio. The company’s cloud offerings include hosting for public and private clouds and value-added services like managed virtualization, colocation, storage, managed big data solutions, dedicated VMware offerings and hosted Microsoft Lync.

Arrow is making offerings available to its partners through its ArrowSphere platform, designed to give MSPs and ISVs easy access to an array of cloud services. The platform also offers customizable webstores that service providers may use to sell both Arrow cloud offerings and their own cloud services.

"Our agreement with Arrow represents a key strategic move extending the value of Rackspace's managed cloud offering deep into the enterprise segment," said Todd Cione, senior vice president of America sales at Rackspace. "Through our shared emphasis on delivering specialized expertise, this collaboration with Arrow will allow us to extend the reach of our Fanatical Support to leading solution providers within the United States and Canadian market, and eventually expand on a global scale."

“Fanatical Support” refers to the company’s 100 percent network uptime guarantee and the technical and helpdesk services that back it up. Last week, the company launched its Rackspace Private Cloud solution powered by OpenStack for running enterprise production workloads.