Shulou(Shulou.com)06/01 Report--

Maybe soon, you will hear that Rackspace's cloud service will be launched on Chinese mainland.

Taking advantage of Gerhard Pretorius, the chief engineer of Rackspace, during a gap in Beijing to attend an e-commerce conference in Shanghai, the author chatted with him and "inquired" a little about the current situation of Rackspace, especially Rackspace's strategy towards China.

There is no need to repeat Rackspace's position in data center outsourced services and cloud services. Rackspace, which has been providing managed services since 1998, is a "veteran" in the field of data center outsourcing services. Currently, Rackspace has nine data centers around the world, including five in the United States, two in the UK, one in Australia and one in Hong Kong, China. In Europe and the United States, where outsourced services are developed and Rac's main kspace has long been involved in, data centers are mostly built by Rackspace, while in emerging markets such as Asia-Pacific, in order to speed up the development of services, Rackspace usually leases off-the-shelf data centers. For example, in Hong Kong, Rackspace is the data center infrastructure leased by PCCW, but the internal IT equipment and security standards in the data center are all done by Rackspace itself.

Chinese customers are no stranger to Rackspace, especially Chinese "technologists" are familiar with Rackspace. As a pioneer of OpenStack, Rackspace's website downloads show that there are huge downloads of Rackspace's OpenStack products from China. This also makes Rackspace realize how strong the demand for cloud is from Chinese users.

Gerhard Pretorius mentioned that madeinchina.com, a Chinese e-commerce company based in Nanjing, uses Rackspace services in the United States, and a glasses seller headquartered in Shanghai, China is also a representative customer of Rackspace in China. At present, e-commerce enterprises are the important customer base of Rackspace, on the other hand, enterprise users with strict requirements for high-quality service are the core user group of Rackspace.

Gerhard Pretorius revealed that at present, more than 300000 enterprise customers in 120 countries around the world have adopted Rackspace services, and 60% of the Fortune 100 companies are also Rackspace customers.

However, it is a pity that Rackspace has not officially entered the Chinese mainland market yet. At present, Rackspace's main business related to China is "please come in and send it out", which brings Chinese users who want to develop in the world abroad and global customers who want to enter the Chinese market.

Perhaps it was the news that Amazon AWS announced its entry into the Chinese market at the end of 2013 that Rackspace,Rackspace is now considering entering the Chinese mainland market. Gerhard Pretorius revealed that Rackspace is currently discussing cooperation plans with local partners in China, and if the negotiations go well, it will announce a formal entry into the Chinese mainland market and possibly set up a data center in China.

Gerhard Pretorius is very frank, saying that it is not easy to enter the Chinese mainland market: first, there are great differences in language and culture; second, in terms of services, the Chinese government has strict regulations and security requirements. As a foreign service provider, we must understand and abide by Chinese laws and regulations, and find a "matching" partner in China. Third, China is a big market, and the needs of customers in different regions are quite different. It is impossible for Rackspace to use "one set" of services to meet the needs of customers in different regions. It does take some time to adjust its services and strategies to different regional markets.

Despite the difficulties, it is certain that Rackspace will enter the Chinese mainland market. China's data center outsourced services and cloud services market is a very attractive cake for any service provider. Gerhard Pretorius believes that there is almost no gap between China and North America in terms of demand and interest in cloud, but there is a gap between China and North America in terms of cloud landing, that is, how to deploy, use and manage cloud, which is the strength of experienced Rackspace and the best entry point to enter the Chinese market.

Many well-known cloud service providers at home and abroad are fighting a price war consciously or unconsciously, and price cuts dozens of times in a few years seem to have become a major selling point to attract customers. Rackspace is alone, determined not to fight a price war. "We will not win at a low price, that is not the 'strength' of Rackspace." "our advantage is' service'," says Gerhard Pretorius.

On Rackspace's website, there are quotations for "naked products" and prices for products including Rackspace's high-quality service. "We are competitors in cloud services with Amazon AWS because we have the same cloud service products at home." "however, we can also provide managed services based on physical devices, as well as services that go deep into enterprise business processes," Gerhard Pretorius said. "our service is to help companies get into the cloud and make good use of the cloud. From this point of view, we are not a high-tech company like Amazon AWS, but a 'service' company."

What kind of unique services can Rackspace provide? Gerhard Pretorius for example, for example, if there are performance problems in a customer's server or storage, Rackspace can use its technology and talent to help customers find bottlenecks that affect the performance of the server or storage, and then further improve it. Rackspace can provide customers with security guidance and upgrades, such as the recent emergence of "heart blood", Rackspace actively contacted thousands of customers to provide security advice and upgrade services; Rackspace can provide customers with cloud management services.

Compared with its competitors, Rackspace is relatively slow to enter the Chinese mainland market, which has a lot to do with Rackspace's service philosophy. Rackspace currently has some small business partners, advertising and marketing activities in China, doing business with Chinese customers. However, Rackspace has always been cautious about landing locally in China, and one of the important reasons is that Rackspace does not want to find a pure business partner only in China, but hopes to find a company that agrees with and matches the concept and values of Rackspace services, which can bring all the technical and service advantages of Rackspace to China.

China is a diversified market, and service providers like Rackspace, which have differentiated advantages in "services", will certainly have their own living space. The key now is how to let Chinese customers know the services, features and advantages of Rackspace timely and accurately. Rackspace has recently begun to step up its local publicity in China and hopes to learn more about the Chinese market and the needs of its customers. This is a positive sign. Will the arrival of Rackspace stir up China's IaaS market?

While global cloud service providers such as Amazon AWS and Rackspace are entering China on a large scale, local cloud service providers in China, such as Ali, Capital online, Huayun data, and so on, are also actively deploying global expansion plans. This two-way flow may promote the rapid maturity of China's public cloud service market.

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