Dear Rackspace: why are you so bloody expensive? | Hacker News Reader

Dear Rackspace: why are you so bloody expensive?

10 pointsmr46 comments

Saw this on ShopForCloud.com's blog, which seems to suggest that the Rackspace cloud is very expensive: http://blog.shopforcloud.com/2012/02/holy-cow-rackspace-uk-cloud-would-be.html

So I'm just wondering if anyone from HN uses the Rackspace cloud, and if so why?

This old HN post mentioned that performance was better on Rackspace, anyone experienced that? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2448812

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I've been a Rackspace customer (both dedicated hardware and cloud) on and off for the last 8 years. I've tried other providers, but I keep going back to Rackspace for the customer service. It's just worth the money to me to be able to get someone on the phone who knows what they're talking about and will take my issue seriously.

I was going to write the exact same thing but I'll just second your comment. I am mostly a dedicated customer but use various cloud offerings here and there.

When I take into account the amount of time Rackspace saves me versus dealing with my non-managed servers, using them is a no-brainer.

One of the Rackspace employees said the same thing [http://lnkd.in/m3cQhJ], but I disagree with the support argument. Even if you include AWS's Platinum support (guaranteed 15min response, see http://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/) it's an extra 10% of the monthly AWS bill so around $7K for 3 years in the example that was mentioned in the blog - which is still a lot cheaper than total Rackspace costs. I think it comes down to Rackspace not having reserved instances, which is why AWS is much cheaper (not support).

If AWS Platinum support is equivalent, then yes, it certainly makes more sense to go with them and save the money. All things being equal, I'm still much more inclined to patronize a business whose company culture is centered around customer service than one who offers it exclusively as a premium feature.

I can tell you why Rackspace is so expensive: because they hired Robert Scoble! http://scobleizer.com/

A few years ago, I had a couple dozen servers when something major broke in the Texas facility. Every customer was effected and the estimate to fix was 4 days. I just called Scoble up ( he published his phone number on the web) and he got a Rackspace VP to get our application back up in a few hours.

The customer support is well worth the extra money

I guess the fact that Rackspace UK charges in GPB doen't help either, AWS EU charges in USD so the exchange rates work in their favour as well when comparing costs.

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