Rackspace US Inc., the San Antonio, Texas-based provider of infrastructure hosting and cloud management services, has added managed identity and access assistance to its Fanatical Support for Microsoft Azure offering.
Available in the U.S. immediately and Europe as well come November, the new product is designed to synchronize onsite Active Directory deployments with Microsoft’s cloud-based Azure Active Directory service, so businesses that utilize both on-premises and off-premises Microsoft software can employ the same user identities in both environments.
An additional federated identity option equips companies to provide single sign-on capabilities across in-house and web-based Microsoft solutions as well.
Buyers of the new service receive a combination of consulting, deployment, and administration help. In the first phase of an engagement, Rackspace works with customers to develop a multi-year strategic plan for implementing a single authentication point across their local and cloud-based solutions. Next, the company cleanses the client’s in-house Active Directory of outdated or incomplete records.
“In order to have an effective or consistent synchronization or federation, the environment really needs to be in tip top shape,” says Jeff DeVerter, chief technologist for Microsoft technologies at Rackspace.
Once it is, Rackspace technicians sync local directory information to the Azure-based equivalent, and then manage the hosted implementation on an ongoing basis.
Rackspace offers the service both directly to end users and via channel partners. Resellers typically prefer to exclude Rackspace from the early stages of client engagements and provide strategic planning and assessment services themselves.
“A lot of times those folks want to remain the face of the project and we are then the enablement of that project behind the scenes,” DeVerter says.
In addition to IAM services, end users and partners can also acquire licenses for both Azure and Microsoft Office 365 from Rackspace, which became a 2-Tier distributor in Microsoft’s Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program in July. Most CSP resellers buy licensing via 2-Tier distributors, and Rackspace says most of the partners it worked with during pre-launch testing of its new identity and access management offering bought Microsoft cloud seats along with the new service.
While small and large businesses are both potential customers for the new Rackspace service, the greatest demand is projected to come from mid-market companies and below.
“The enterprise space tends to have already thought through this,” De Verter says.
Resellers of the new offering keep a scaled, volume-based percentage of the revenue Rackspace collects from end users.
Though the new service unveiled today is specifically for Azure, Office 365 users are its chief beneficiaries at present. Microsoft requires companies deploying Office 365 to create an Azure Active Directory before migrating users to the new environment. Channel pros and their customers often find that to be a more time-consuming and complex task than expected, and the number one obstacle to adopting Office 365.
To date, about 90 percent of test engagements for the managed identity service have been Office 365-related. Rackspace will add further capabilities more specifically applicable to Azure itself in the future.
According to DeVerter, the company also expects its managed identity and access offering to be helpful in connection with another new service, due within a month, that will help businesses link on-premises deployments of Microsoft SharePoint with SharePoint Online.
Rackspace introduced Fanatical Support for Azure in July of 2015, about two months after the rollout of its Fanatical Support for Office 365 service. Both offerings are elements of a larger strategic move on the company’s part to add management of third-party cloud services from Microsoft and Amazon to its traditional infrastructure hosting business. According to DeVerter, demand for the two Microsoft-related support products has been strong.
“It’s been excellent,” he says. “Adoption has been significant and we’re having to do a lot of hiring.” DeVerter declined to provide specific sales figures, however.
In August, Rackspace agreed to be acquired by affiliates of New York City-based alternative investment manager Apollo Global Management LLC in a deal valued at $4.3 billion.
