Rackspace Colocation Customer Guide

Rackspace Technology Colocation allows you to secure the infrastructure you own within Rackspace Technology™ data centers. This eliminates the costs associated with operating and managing a data center of your own and brings hardware within reach of global multi-cloud networks. These services are available in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa (EMEA), Asia Pacific, and Japan (APJ). Customers retain management of their hardware, but we offer Smart Hands as a complimentary service that provides colocation customers access to a highly trained team of technicians and engineers available 24x7x365 for routine physical tasks.

This guide contains the following sections:

• Rackspace Colocation Migration Services
• Hardware Installation
• Portal navigation
• Billing
• Datacenter access and training
• Colocation Support
• Blended bandwidth for Rackspace Colocation
• Rackconnet for Rackspace Colocation

Rackspace Colocation Migration Services

When you’re considering a move from your own data center to Rackspace Colocation, Rackspace Technology experts can guide you through every stage of the migration to help build and execute your strategy. Your colocation migration, whether large or small, can benefit from always-on support and expertise from Rackspace Technology.

Key features and benefits:

• World-class migration
• Rackspace Technology also delivers a white-glove colocation migration service to help you get your hardware to a Rackspace Technology data center so that you can kick-start your digital transformation journey. Rackspace Technology is there from pre-engagement to handoff.

Rackspace Colocation migration phases

This section outlines the systematic approach Rackspace Technology uses to expertly plan and execute a migration of your hardware to our facility.

Migration phases:

• Pre-engagement: Successful migration projects begin with outlining the project scope. At the kick-off meeting, Rackspace Technology migration experts work with you to clarify the best-fit platform for your needs and review cost structures. With your input, we develop and approve the project objectives, budget, and timeline.

• Assessment: The second phase includes assessing and analyzing your current environment and rationalizing the environment with your future-state cloud strategy. The goal is to ensure that the decisions made today align with your future requirements.

• Design: During this phase, Rackspace Technology profiles all of the applications and hardware in scope and customizes a migration strategy based on your future-state cloud architecture.

• Plan: Rackspace Technology schedules your hardware migration around your business operations, details your move requirements, schedules your hardware move, and documents post-move test plans and go-live processes.

• Build: Rackspace Technology assigns your colocation elements, such as cabinets and cages, and builds out any infrastructure required, such as cross-connects and PDUs, in anticipation of the hardware move from your data center or a third-party or Rackspace Technology data center.

• Migrate: For the physical move, Rackspace Technology partners with a leading freight and logistics company with vast experience in hardware migration services. Rackspace Technology validates the inventory pre-move, tracks progress during the move, and helps ensure that all of your hardware arrives at its destination on time. After it arrives, you can deploy your hardware yourself or have Rackspace Technology do the unpacking, racking, and cabling for you.

• Handoff and close: Rackspace Technology validates that the move and set-up complete successfully and that your new environment is up and running.

Hardware Installation

The customer coordinates deliveries with Rackspace Inventory and handles receiving, unpacking, and moving their equipment into the DC (see Shipping, Receiving, and Inventory Services) unless they pay for Smart Hands for installation as part of their initial contract. The customer must secure and get DC Facilty Engineering approval for any vendor or customer-supplied cabinets to be installed.

During the customer installation, Rackspace provides contact information for an onsite POC to answer questions and provide guidance and technical assistance as needed. The customer should submit a Smart Hands request for any necessary assistance with the installation of customer gear.

Datacenter access and training

Datacenter access

To provide customers a Fanatical Experience®, we provide every Rackspace customer with a dedicated implementation leader to guide you through the implementation process. The implementation leader contacts you directly and lets you know when the colocation environment is ready to accommodate your deployment. Together, you establish a move-in date for your colocation deployment, and the implementation leader serves as the primary liaison between you and the data center operations team.

Datacenter facility safety training

DC Facility Engineering issues data center safety training to all Colocation customers with registered access to the data center. This training includes a contractor safety video, tour of the facility, and a signed agreement to adhere to Rackspace’s colocation data center rules and regulations.

Portal navigation

Customers receive personal training for the MyRack Customer Portal from your implementation leader, including a demo for submitting smart hands requests.

Reference the Rackspace Technology Customer Portal guide for a comprehensive guide on your Rackspace Technology Customer Portal.

Billing

Rackspace Colocation uses an allocated billing model, which charges by the kilowatt (kW), for the right to use a defined amount of reserved redundant critical power. There is no additional charge for space or cooling. A customer may request an additional standard rack-sized equivalent space for every 4kW reserved. Customers also pay monthly recurring fees for cross-connects and blended bandwidth if purchased.

Rackspace bills customers for one-time installation fees, power circuits, private cages, in rack-PDUs, and cross-connects.

Colocation Support

From the moment you go live with your solution, RAS Digital Experience teams across all shifts are ready to provide ongoing support. Each Digital Experience team has participated in internal knowledge-transfer sessions that educate participants about the particular aspects of your deployment.

At this time, you should have the following:

• Enabled automatic ticket creation
• Alert monitors in place
• A runbook that provides detailed and actionable steps to take for each alert type

From this point forward, the RAS implementation phase is complete, and your environment is being monitored.

Refer to the following sections to ensure that your monitoring solution continues to run smoothly after you go live.

• Smart Hands Support
• Request Smart Hands
• Submitting tickets

Smart Hands Support

From routine maintenance to highly complex installations, you can trust Smart Hands service for Rackspace Colocation to be there when you can’t; or to allow you to focus resources on other important aspects of your business.

Rackspace Smart Hands service provides colocation customers access to a highly trained team of technicians and engineers available 24x7x365. Purchasing, submitting and tracking Smart Hands requests is easily done through the MyRack portal where you have complete visibility into the status of your request.

Rackspace is the only colocation provide to offer and SLA around smart hands (reference Product Terms for more details). The smart-hands SLA varies by facility:

24-hour execution SLA only available Monday thru Friday

Request Smart Hands

Smart Hands requests types come in two categories, and you can find the estimated time to complete each task listed next to the option. Rackspace charges customers for the actual time Data Center Operations requires to complete the request, which is rounded up to the nearest 15-minutes. The Smart Hands Rate is US $46.25 per 15 minutes in addition to any bill of materials.

Smart Hands requests include the following list of tasks and estimated time to complete

Onsite technical assistance and troubleshooting

• Power cycling a router, server, or switch (30 Minutes)
• Providing visual verifications to assist in remote troubleshooting (30 Minutes for visual verification plus any additional time for troubleshooting)
• Swapping tapes, such as customer-provided media and containers (30 Minutes)
• Testing cabling media for continuity and proper signaling (60 Minutes per three cables)
• Customer-provided hardware replacement, such as hot-swappable hardware (30 Minutes for hot-swap, 60 minutes for replacement device)
• Moving or securing cables (60 Minutes per three cables)
• Customer-provided cable replacement (60 Minutes per three cables)

Hardware installation and decommissioning services

• Racking and un-racking equipment in customer cabinets (60 Minutes per device)
  • Connecting and securing customer-provided power cords and removal of power cords (30 Minutes per three cables)
  • In-cabinet network cabling with customer-provided cabling (60 Minutes per three cables)
  • Powering up devices and visual confirmation of hardware status (30 Minutes per three devices)
  • Installing and removing cabinet-to-cabinet cabling with customer-provided cabling (60 Minutes per cable)
  • Hard drive and media destruction (30 Minutes per three devices)

For all general requests that aren’t Smart Hands and are not one of the preceding categories, the Customer can select None under Type of Request within the Colocation Smart Hands and General Support Request in the Customer Portal.

Submitting tickets

One of the primary ways the Customer can interact with Rackspace is by creating a ticket in the Rackspace Customer Portal. After login, click Tickets from the menu to create a new ticket or view an existing ticket. The Rackspace automated systems also create tickets for events on the Customer’s account that require either the Customer’s attention or the attention of a Rackspace employee. The Customer can also call the 24x7x365 support team at any time.

• Standard: If the Customer’s site is functioning within acceptable parameters, but the Customer requires assistance in loading software or have a help desk-type question, Rackspace responds to the Customer’s initial request within four hours.
• Urgent: If the Customer’s server or site is accessible but in a reduced state (timeouts or slow response), Rackspace responds to the Customer’s initial support request within one hour.
• Emergency: If the Customer can’t access their server or site from the public internet, Rackspace responds within 15 minutes.

Blended bandwidth for Rackspace Colocation

Blended bandwidth customers leverage the same sophisticated network that powers the Rackspace Technology best-in-class managed hosting and cloud offerings. We enhance user experience by automatically routing traffic to the carrier offering the lowest latency and highest quality of service. And we adhere to the highest network security standards, with global teams monitoring network activity 24x7x365 to anticipate interruptions and mitigate threats.

Currently available in all Rackspace data centers with colocation across North America, Europe and Asia Pacific, Rackspace Blended Bandwidth offers:

Protected circuits: Every connection comes with dual connections for redundancy.

95th-Percentile burstable billing: Because traffic patterns can be unpredictable, Rackspace doesn’t charge for the top 5% of traffic surges.

Security and Compliance: Our multi-layered approach to network security meets the strictest standards — including ISO 27002 and 27001, PCI DSS, SSAE16, SOC 1, 2 and 3, Privacy Shield, and the Content Protection and Security Standard.

DDoS mitigation: Available as a subscription service for proactive protection to identify malicious traffic with the first hostile packet, or as an on-demand service that can be activated if a security event is underway.

Control: Access to full routing tables to facilitate granular traffic management.

IPs: One IP included per colocated device, up to 16 devices; additional IP packages available up to /22 (1024 IPs).

Rackconnet for Rackspace Colocation

RackConnect® Global is a software defined multi-cloud interconnection platform that links Rackspace customers with other Rackspace data centers, third-party data centers and third-party clouds via direct, private, low-latency, and virtual connections.

Key features of RackConnect Global include the following:

• Multicloud flexibility: Spin up essentially infinite virtual connections over one physical connection as needed.
• IT unification: Establish a cohesive private environment over the proprietary Rackspace Technology backbone that links all your IT applications.
• Expanded reach: Broaden your edge by harnessing the power of Megaport and the Equinix Cloud Exchange Fabric — the two-leading software-defined multi-cloud interconnection ecosystems, simultaneously.
• High performance: Achieve reliable, high-performance, low-latency connections with speeds up to 10Gbps and a 99.9% uptime guarantee.
• Lower costs: RackConnect Global is significantly more cost effective than procuring point-to-point connections from a telecommunications carrier.