Rackspace Launching Pay-As-You-Go Billing For Private VMware Infrastructure, Kubernetes Service

Rackspace said Wednesday it will offer a pay-as-you-go billing model to customers adopting its private VMware cloud and its new managed Kubernetes service.

Working with HPE hybrid cloud technology, Rackspace will sell VMware-virtualized and container-based infrastructure running on-premises, in colocation facilities or in a Rackspace data center that's metered and billed solely by usage, Peter FitzGibbon, vice president of Rackspace's VMware business, told CRN.

Customers and resellers had requested more-flexible economics for private clouds, looking to maintain workloads in their preferred environments while enjoying cost-effective resource scaling when needed, FitzGibbon said.

[Related: Rackspace Partner Program Reboot Includes New Resources, Better Access To Cloud, Managed IT Services For Dedicated Partners]

"They can really purchase what they need for a steady-state situation, with the ability to burst into reserve capacity that they only pay for on a per-use basis," he told CRN.

Rackspace ramped its partnership with VMware last August to bring vSphere environments to more enterprise customers, and extended that offering two months ago into on-premises and third-party data centers.

The San Antonio, Tex.-based managed cloud provider has offered an OpenStack cloud consumption-billing model since November.

The unique billing model will benefit many enterprises that find themselves trapped by hardware repair cycles that don't coincide with the expiration of data center leases, he said.

The solution is made possible by HPE's GreenLake Flexible Capacity hybrid cloud infrastructure.

For customers implementing container-based infrastructure at production scale, Rackspace will also offer per-usage billing for its recently introduced Kubernetes-as-a-Service solution, Bryan Thompson, ‎general manager for OpenStack Private Cloud, told CRN.

For both the VMware and Kubernetes infrastructure, Rackspace will work with customers to model their "day 1" usage, then provide 20 percent additional buffer capacity to accommodate organic scaling or temporary bursting, Thompson said.

That will remove the need to pre-provision idle capacity by untethering private cloud deployments from a burdensome procurement process involving ordering new gear, he said.

Rackspace's channel can bring the service to market, as can HPE resellers.

Both the VMware private cloud and Kubernetes pay-per-go services will become available later in the summer.