Add a Managed Operations Service Level to Your Cloud Account

A Rackspace Managed Operations account extends the managed support level from our Managed Services offering into our Cloud offering. This offer provides an additional level of support and management that includes monitoring, operating system layer support, and technical guidance for your Rackspace Cloud portfolio.

Managed Operations accounts include access to a dedicated support team available 24x7x365 by phone, chat, email, and online support ticket. The team supports your Cloud Servers from the operating system level through the application stack of Microsoft® SQL Server™, .NET® and Internet Information Services (IIS), as well as the Linux®, Apache®, MySQL®, and PHP (LAMP) stack on Linux®. Rackspace regularly patches and updates your Cloud Server. We also manage your Cloud Databases and provide basic database administrator assistance, such as user and table management and data backups. The Managed Operations team provides monitoring services and proactively responds to any alerts. As a Managed Operations customer, you can configure up to eight monitors per server with any combination of ping, port, and URL.

For a list of supported operating system versions and applications for Linux, see Linux Spheres of Support for Dedicated and Managed Operations.

For information about support for Windows®, see Cloud Servers with Managed Operations Support for Windows.

No, upgrading to a Managed Operations account doesn't change server Internet Protocol (IP) addresses or hostname. It also doesn't change server IDs, your Rackspace Cloud account number, or your username and password combination.

Suppose you choose to upgrade to a Managed Operations account. In that case, you must either delete any active Cloud Servers and images that run unsupported operating systems or transfer those unsupported images to a separate account. After you have taken these steps, you are eligible to upgrade.

If you need a new Cloud Server or Cloud Database, you can create the image on the server or have the Managed Operations team create it for you. In either case, we update, patch, and run the instance for you.

To upgrade to a Rackspace Managed Operations account, you must have an account that meets the following conditions:

• The account is active and up to date on all billing invoices.

• No Cloud Servers on the account run on unsupported operating systems.

• No Cloud Server images exist on the account for unsupported operating systems.

  A technical account manager can ensure that Managed Operations is the best fit for your needs.

Contact your Rackspace Support team to learn more about Managed Operations service level pricing.

Rackspace Technology determines the monthly individual account fee, which covers the monthly account administration. Every Cloud Server or Database instance incurs a service fee that represents the administration of each server instance. This fee structure enables Rackspace to provide you with our managed service at the lowest possible cost.

We do not prorate the account fee. However, the service fee is a utility-based fee that bills only the amount of time that your instance is active.

Not at this time. However, if you notice issues or have questions about capacity, your Rackspace Account team can work with you and recommend solutions.

No, your Rackspace Account team does not troubleshoot your program code.

New Cloud Servers on Managed Operations accounts have a basic Rackspace Cloud Backup configuration. This configuration backs up directories that commonly contain user data weekly. The default backup profile is not a full system backup. Our support team can assist you with adding more locations to the backup profile or changing the time interval between backups.

Because Cloud Backup stores its archives in Cloud Files, standard storage and bandwidth costs for Cloud Files apply. Deleting a Cloud Server does not delete associated backup archives in Cloud Files. You must manually remove these archives.

Because Rackspace offers Managed Operations at the account level, those services apply to every cloud product on an account. If you want Managed Operations to apply to only certain cloud products, you need to move the products for which you don't want Managed Operations to a separate account.

During the upgrade process, Rackspace performs the following steps:

• Resets the root password for each server to gain access to the server.
• Creates a Rackspace management account on each server.
• Installs the Rackspace Cloud Backup agent.
• Installs the Monitoring Agent.
• If necessary, installs the vendor-provided kernel and prepare for updates.

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Because rebooting a server during the upgrade process might cause problems, you should image each server before an upgrade. Rackspace does not perform this step for you. You should also ensure that all of your services (such as MySQL) restart upon reboot before you upgrade.

In addition, you need to open port `445` for Microsoft Windows® or port `22` for Linux for the automation to run successfully. Rackspace can open ports manually only after you associate a server to a Managed Operations account.

We recommend that you work with your account manager (AM) throughout the upgrade process to ensure that you have the best possible experience. The following list describes reasons why you should work with an AM:

1. If an automated server upgrade fails, an administrator must log in and complete the work.
2. The automation occurs on port 22 on Linux and port 445 on Windows. If these ports are inactive, the server automation process fails, but the account still upgrades. If you don't want to use port 22 or 443, Rackspace can make a manual change that enables you to rerun the automation on a different port.
3. If you have older servers that run operating systems that Managed Operations doesn't support, an AM can provide you with options for moving to the most appropriate operating system.
4. An AM can review your architecture to ensure that it's appropriate for a cloud-based environment.
5. An AM can help you set expectations for your bill.

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Changing to a new service level agreement might also change your AM. When this occurs, the process includes a hand-off from your current AM to your new AM.

Yes, the process is similar to the process you use to link your Managed Hosting accounts and your cloud accounts.

You can contact the Rackspace Managed Operations account team by chat, phone, or submitting a ticket online. You can find the phone number and links to other communication methods in the Cloud Control Panel.

At this time, you can only upgrade to Rackspace Managed Operations. If you want to remove the managed service, you need to create a new account and build new Cloud Servers and Cloud Databases.

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