An open market auction for cloud servers called Rackspace SPOT has been launched by managed cloud hosting provider Rackspace Technology (NASDAQ: RXT). Rackspace SPOT offers instantaneous online registration, a customer-driven bidding process that allows users to calculate market pricing, and capacity supplied as fully managed, turnkey Kubernetes clusters.
Rackspace SPOT introduces a range of key features designed to optimize and streamline Kubernetes cluster management for preemptible workloads. This platform offers Kubernetes clusters specifically tailored for tasks that can be interrupted, ensuring efficient resource use without sacrificing performance. A standout feature is the inclusion of a Kubernetes control plane, with an option for a High Availability (HA) control plane, to ensure consistent, reliable management across the cluster. Furthermore, Rackspace SPOT supports autoscaling of Kubernetes clusters, enabling them to adjust dynamically to workload demands.
As of now, Rackspace SPOT is available in five global regions, boasting thousands of servers to cater to the needs of its users worldwide. The platform adopts dynamic market pricing through a bidding system, guaranteeing users the most competitive and current prices for their computing needs. Additionally, Rackspace SPOT is designed with developers in mind, offering an Application Programming Interface (APIs) and compatibility with Open Tofu/Terraform providers. This would make it easier for developers to integrate and manage their applications on the platform, providing a flexible and efficient solution for handling preemptible workloads.
According to Lance Weaver, Chief Product and Technology Officer of Rackspace Technology’s Private Cloud Business Unit, “Rackspace SPOT offers a unique open market auction model that provides cost-effective cloud infrastructure solutions for small to medium enterprises, startups, digital companies, and developers. By using market-driven dynamic pricing and high-availability Kubernetes clusters, enterprises may procure cloud infrastructure at optimal cost by adjusting resources in real time. The openness of the auction procedure offers data for price comparison and cost-effective alternative selection.”
In Collaboration with Platform9
Team members from Rackspace Technology and Platform9, an independent supplier of Kubernetes controlled by Software-as-a-Service, collaborated on the development of Rackspace Spot.
Platform9’s co-founder and Chief Growth Officer, Sirish Raghuram, stated, ‘We are happy to contribute to Rackspace Spot, a major innovation in the cloud computing market. Spot has other Platform9 advancements, including a newly hosted Kubernetes control plane centrally, which reduces expenses for users. This makes it possible for clients to launch a fully managed Kubernetes cluster for as little as $0.72 a month – two orders of magnitude less expensive than similar options.”
Rackspace SPOT would provide significant advantages by using an open market strategy to reduce cloud server resource costs. Users have the exclusive chance to place bids on cloud servers from Rackspace’s large inventory. Bids are completed via an open market auction procedure, usually in a matter of minutes. This distributed and scalable system would ensure efficiency and flexibility and is especially well-suited for managing heavy workloads.
Transparency and competition are ensured by setting the market price for servers at the auction’s final cut-off price. Furthermore, Rackspace SPOT would help improve the user experience by using Slack webhooks to provide warnings for node pre-emption, which would keep users informed while enabling them to respond quickly to changes in their computing environment.
Users of Rackspace Spot would be enabled to benefit from Kubernetes without having to worry about troubleshooting or setting high-availability updates due to its modular design.
Furthermore, SPOT is pre-configured with two storage classes – Permanent Storage (SSD) and Serial ATA (SATA) – as well as load balancers and a Calico Container Network Interface (CNI) that can be controlled by network policies.
Rackspace SPOT may further enrich user experiences by allowing the integration of preferred Kubernetes Helm charts or Operators, alongside providing a selection of out-of-the-box options curated by Rackspace engineers. These pre-configured add-ons include Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS) operators for seamless database management, cluster backup solutions for data safety, enhanced monitoring for improved oversight, security scanning to safeguard against vulnerabilities, and Machine Learning Operations (MLOps) tooling to streamline the development and deployment of machine learning models.
