SAN ANTONIO -- June 22, 2004 -- Rackspace Managed Hosting, the leading managed hosting specialist, today announced a new application platform service level agreement (SLA) for its Intensive Hosting customers. Intensive, Rackspace's application hosting offering for enterprises running Microsoft platforms, now offers an SLA that guarantees uptime for the entire software stack, including operating systems, database servers and the application framework.
Typically, IT outsourcers will only guarantee application-level uptime if they assume total control of the project, denying customers administrative-level access to their own application. For many developers, this halts their ability to work in a dynamic environment with the flexibility to make code changes and updates on a frequent basis. Intensive Hosting's application platform SLA takes accountability for all elements of the application stack up to the code, but gives full administrative control to the customer.
Rackspace already guarantees its customers zero network downtime. Building upon this base, its Intensive customers are ensured that critical applications are available through the new SLA. Designed to protect customers against unscheduled outages in their applications or Web sites, the SLA guarantees a minimum application availability of 99 percent when running non-redundant Web or database servers and a maximum of 100 percent application platform availability when running a geographically redundant solution. The SLA provides for unsurpassed levels of application availability with correspondingly aggressive penalties for failure to comply.
"Intensive's SLA really offers the best of both worlds in terms of extending application control to our customers, while we take accountability for everything else. Intensive constantly monitors the software stack to maintain a stable groundwork for application performance," said John Engates, chief technology officer, Rackspace Managed Hosting. "Intensive's application SLA takes our promise of Fanatical Support(TM) one step further with proactive service level management and delivers generous customer refunds in the event of failure."
Using an integrated set of proprietary and industry standard monitoring tools, Intensive platform observes each layer of the hardware and software infrastructure that supports the customer application. At the application layer, the customer's primary URL (Web site or Web application) is polled in addition to an application integrity test performed every five minutes. If at any time the monitoring systems detect a problem, Intensive engineers are alerted immediately and begin troubleshooting. They work with the customer's internal technical team if a problem persists, but Rackspace owns the problem until it is resolved.
Early warning and proactive response to small problems helps avert larger outages and application downtime. If necessary, a brief maintenance window is scheduled to correct any potential problems. Each month the SLA monitoring system calculates the availability of the application platform and a report is generated and available to customers via the MyRackspace customer portal. If necessary, Intensive then proactively issues SLA credits.
About Rackspace Managed Hosting
Rackspace Managed Hosting(TM) is the fastest-growing managed hosting specialist offering the world's only Self-Healing Network(TM), delivering 100 percent network availability. Founded in 1998, Rackspace offers a wide range of managed services for enterprise hosting platforms. The company has received numerous industry awards for its brand of customer service, known as Fanatical Support(TM), and was named to the 2003 InfoWorld 100 for technology innovation. For more information, visit www.rackspace.com, or call 800-961-2888.
