Rackspace is a company that likes to network. Actually, Rackspace is a company that LOVES to network, so connecting with a company known for its prowess in Application Delivery Networking had to be a win-win for us.

So our networking champion this week is F5 Networks. The company recently won the Datacenter Leaders Award for Innovation in IT Optimisation in recognition for its work with our RackConnect™ Hybrid Cloud hosting service.

Rackspace’s RackConnect service enables businesses to dynamically direct data to either cloud-based or dedicated resources and add in cloud capacity quickly as needed.

The service can make use of F5’s BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager or a firewall service from another vendor to give Rackspace customers the opportunity to use both dedicated and cloud hosting services. Where RackConnect shines in its ability to securely connect private computing resources directly with public cloud resources, pushing data to either cloud or dedicated environments as needed by specific application use cases.

Simon Abrahams, Head of Product Marketing, EMEA at Rackspace, commented: “Through the intelligent use of F5’s technology we have been able to use existing equipment to deploy a new offering to our customers within a very short time period. With our established track record in taking customers to cloud services quickly and fluidly, F5 has now joined our portfolio to help give our customers a head start on their journey to the cloud.”

The Datacenter Leader Awards recognises innovation, leadership and ‘out of the box’ thinking across the Datacenter industry. Now in its fifth year, it serves to celebrate and identify Datacenter projects of all sizes across all sectors of the U.K. and Europe.

It’s Award season and it looks like the Artist is becoming the film of the year as it picked up more gongs at the BAFTAs. Naturally we’d like to congratulate everyone involved, but really, that’s nothing compared to winning a Racker Award! This week we’re continuing to share the glory of our winners…

Our star on the red carpet today is our best team player – Matt Johns

There’s no ‘i’ in team. A team player thinks of others before themselves. They are that special person you can always turn to, knowing that they will give their time with pleasure.

Nobody was surprised when Matt Johns took to the podium to be awarded his Best Team player medal at our kick-off event earlier this year. Matt is a veteran Racker who pretty much everyone will get to know within their first few weeks. If he’s not sharing his wealth of knowledge about our product range, stopping to say hi in the restaurant or chasing you down on his bike, then he’s probably organising a charity event and encouraging Rackers to dress up daft or grow copious amounts of facial hair for Movember.

Matt might be a member of the Product Team, within Marketing, but anyone can see that the tribe closest to his heart is that of Rackspace as a whole.

This is what a team player looks like:

“Matt is a true legend. Not only does he possess the qualities of a true gentlemen but also the qualities of a totally fanatical Racker. He’s dedicated so much of his time helping with charities from organising them and making sure that every Racker involved is engaged and feels part of something special. He has such passion and drive – a real Mr Nice.”

Last week we gathered together as a business to focus on our plans and strategies for the coming year. We also took some time to look back on a successful 2011 and recognise a few Rackers that made a truly phenomenal impact on both the business and the team as a whole. We love them so much that we wanted to share their stories with you here. First up we have our best newcomer, Gurpreet. In a field of over 200 Gurpreet really stood out.

Best Newcomer – Gurpreet Ahluwalia

Gurpreet, a Windows Intensive Admin, has made a real difference at the Rack! His skill at organisation and getting things done has created a more efficient and faster server implementation process which is great news for both Rackspace and our customers.

By his eighth month in the business Gurpreet was already being tied up in the straight jacket and commended for his Fanatical Support as he won our coveted Fanatic of the Month award!

One of Gurpreet’s many fans had this to say about him:

“His numerous nominations throughout the year just go to show what an impact he has made to the Support Floor this year. This is not only with customer deployments and support issues, but also his process improvement work, commitment, attention to detail. He is such an approachable and friendly guy.”

Congratulations Gurpreet – we’re looking forward to seeing what you achieve in 2012!

This week we’re excited to be running our Racker wellness week to get our whole team focused on wholesome eating, sports activities and healthy lifestyle habits.

It’s no secret that we all need to be healthy and happy on the inside if we are going to perform well on the outside. So given our goal to constantly deliver (Fanatical) support to our customers every day, we want to ensure our Rackers feel healthy and engaged when they come into work.

As much as Rackspace is about hosting and cloud computing resources, it’s the Human Resources that grow with us that make this company what it really is. So this week we’ll be keeping our personal disk drives humming with a variety of activities such as rowing competitions, free healthy-option breakfasts, work-life balance workshops and also top exercise tips.

The wellness week initiative is the kind of activity that has seen Rackspace recognised as an employee-focused company determined to create a really great 21st Century working environment for our team — and yes, we do call them our “family”.

Just yesterday FORTUNE magazine ranked us number 74 on its annual list of the “100 Best Companies to Work For” in the world. We believe Rackers can only provide Fanatical Support to our customers if they are happy and healthy themselves. What are you doing to keep your colleagues and employees healthy? Post your comments!

Exchange Server is “server-side” technology for email, calendaring, contacts and ‘task’ services, so it’s perfectly suited to the cloud model in many ways. Here are our five principles of cloud-powered Exchange; these are the home truths that should help us realise that what happens in the cloud, should stay in the cloud.

1. Innovate and differentiate

Why invest time, money, skills, resources, maintenance budget (yes, we could go on) on managing an Exchange server (that can operate with minimal disruptions), when you are in business delivering fresh fish, proving tourism services or some other line of vertical? Spend your time on innovating and differentiating and building a growth strategy. At the same time, put your Exchange communications needs in the cloud and keep your hands clean.

2. Riding Annual Demand Cycles

Cloud computing allows you to pay for what you need, not for how what you might need. This is a big benefit for businesses wasting money on unused server or storage capacity or capacity that is only used during peak usage times. If your business is seasonally affected and/or impacted by annual demand cycles caused by market economics or your own roadmap, then this is a route to higher profitability.

3. Move Away From The Office Desk

Business has gone mobile as we know and is not strictly conducted at the traditional desk anymore — and neither is Hosted Exchange. Users need real-time access on the desktop, browser and any mobile device. Hosted Exchange is a familiar way to get that luxury with all of a user’s data: email, calendar, contacts and tasks – without setting up complex mobile infrastructure.

4. Exchange With Outlook – Not Rocket Science

Most professionals have used Outlook at some point in their careers and are comfortable with how it works — this means that generally speaking, everyone can get up to speed with Exchange quickly with fewer disruptions and there is little or no training needed.

5. Deploy Inboxes in Minutes

One of the beauties of any hosted service, like Exchange, is having a standard service applied across many users. This means little or no customisation is needed, reduced costs and quicker ramp up is seen across the board. Added to this, if businesses sign up to Rackspace Email and Apps, they’ll receive free migration.

To find out more about Exchange powered by Rackspace click here: http://www.rackspace.co.uk/email-apps/email-hosting/microsoft-exchange/

OK so you already know that we’ve been helping customers define their hosting needs for some years now.

But as customers adopt more service based computing resources like cloud hosting, it’s only logical that they will also now ask more of their hosting provider to ensure they are getting the correct solution.

So we thought hey, let’s produce an infographic to take customers through a simple decision making process on a route to the solution that’s right for them.

It’s clear clean and enjoyably easy to read, we think it works really well – if you agree with us then please share it with your friends!

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<a style="border: none;" title="Rackspace Hosting - What type of site do you want to host?" href="http://blog.rackspace.co.uk/rackspace-news/hosting-decisions-from-the-chalkboard-infographic/"><img src="http://blog.rackspace.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/hosting-type-guide-v2.jpg" alt="Rackspace Hosting - What type of site do you want to host?" /></a>
Infographic by <a title="Rackspace Hosting" href="http://www.rackspace.co.uk">Rackspace Hosting</a>