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In the Microsoft Hybrid Cloud Partners podcast, we explore the latest opportunities for you to enhance your profitability and prepare for the future with AI. New episodes are now available in all podcast platforms and share the stories of Services Provider License Agreement (SPLA) partners scaling profitably and the innovative hybrid cloud solutions behind them.
Rackspace Technology is a trusted Microsoft partner and a leading driver of Azure Arc. Read their story here and listen to this recent episode of the Hybrid Cloud Partners podcast to learn how they will save $40M in the next three years with their hybrid cloud implementation of Azure Arc.
Rackspace partners with Microsoft to reduce costs and provide more value to customers
Rackspace has been an innovator and leader in the technology services industry for more than two decades. The latest innovations in hybrid cloud led to a partnership with Microsoft around Azure Arc, transforming how they help customers, both in the security space and in managing their workloads running Windows Server and SQL Server.
“This is the perfect world for Arc. It allows us to have a single pane of glass, to be able to manage and secure our customers’ workloads. It’s a bridge to hybrid computing.” —Jeff DeVerter, Chief Technology Evangelist
When Rackspace started looking into transitioning from their SPLA SQL Server to Arc-enabled SQL, they realized the potential to reduce total cost of ownership (TCO) was massive—an estimated $40 million over the next three years. Along with the financial benefit to Rackspace, Arc would enable their customers to manage, through a single pane of glass, their day-to-day business more cost-effectively and provide improved billing economics.
“Coming to us for not just our SPLA licensing but also for extended support is a huge value to our customers. They’re able to access and see in real time what their utilization is. It leads to better visibility or observability, as we like to say, which at the end of the day is what all customers want.” —Zachary Symm, Product Manager for Managed Public Cloud
Empowering partners and customers in a hybrid world
Rackspace plays a critical role in the hybrid world. Their ability to support customers in their data center and in Azure enables customers to utilize resources where it matters most. Azure Arc empowers customers to get the services they need in a more manageable and efficient way. The shift, says Symm, “opens up AI, it opens up security like Sentinel, it opens up licensing, it opens up as Microsoft evolves all these future services that they can now consume. It’s a massive transformation journey for the customer to be able to utilize all those benefits.”
Rackspace worked with the Microsoft Datacenter Optimization (DCO) team to successfully make the move to Azure Arc.
Looking ahead, Rackspace plans to continue growing their partnership with Microsoft as they continue to build out new capabilities and provide managed services on Azure and across their datacenters with Azure Arc. In Azure Arc, they now have a single management tool that reduces complexity and security risks while providing greater benefits to their customers.
Says Symm, “The ability to use all the new services from Azure and transport the scalability, the portability, all of those things, into the on-premises or multi-cloud world is a massive opportunity for all MSPs.”
Next steps
Learn more about this story in the latest episode of the Hybrid Cloud Partners podcast.
Subscribe today to listen wherever you get your favorite podcasts:
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*With closed captions in Spanish, Portuguese, and French.
For exclusive resources and to become part of the Microsoft DCO community, visit dco.microsoft.com.
Join the conversation
Want to explore this and other topics you care about with Microsoft and other US partners? Head over to the Microsoft Americas Partner Community on LinkedIn.
