Rackspace Hosting, the service leader in cloud computing, today announced the availability of professional training for OpenStack delivered by Rackspace Cloud Builders. With the support of more than 100 participating organizations, OpenStack is an open source cloud operating system that is quickly becoming the industry standard for public and private clouds. Rackspace Cloud Builders will provide hands-on training courses for OpenStack developers and administrators covering the fundamentals of setting up, administering and troubleshooting OpenStack clouds via real-world situations in a training lab environment.

The initial five-day training course, Fundamentals Training for OpenStack, will be offered in Boston before the OpenStack Design Summit, at the Rackspace campus in London, and at the Dell campus in Austin, with additional dates and locations to be announced. Two days of the fundamentals course will focus on OpenStack Object Storage, open source software that can create petabytes of distributed, reliable storage, and three days will focus on OpenStack Compute, open source software used to provision and manage large networks of virtual machines. Because the classes provide lab-based training, registration is limited to ensure a strong teacher to student ratio.

Peter Krey, Founder & President of Krey Associates, attended a Rackspace Training for OpenStack pilot class this summer. According to Krey, "Having direct access to OpenStack core developers and people who have implemented OpenStack in production was a unique and valuable experience. Unlike homogenized classes with stale video and static slides, the practical, hands-on approach made it highly relevant. I am very impressed that they incorporate attendee feedback and are committed to continuous improvement of the curriculum."

As founders and core contributors to OpenStack, the team of Rackspace Cloud Builders includes the architects and operators of the NASA Nebula Cloud Platform and The Rackspace Cloud, and all have solid experience deploying and operating cloud infrastructure on a massive scale.

"As powerful as the OpenStack software is, we know firsthand it takes a lot more than software to properly design, deploy and operate a cloud at scale. We are pleased to introduce Rackspace Cloud Builders training, which immerses students in the OpenStack environment to evaluate the technology for specific use cases, learn how to get a cloud up and running and improve the performance of an existing installation," said Jim Curry, GM of Rackspace Cloud Builders. "Students of Rackspace Cloud Builders training will have exclusive access to the OpenStack specialists at Rackspace, and will walk away from the training course with the experience and knowledge to install, run and operate an OpenStack system in production."

Rackspace Cloud Builders can also deliver a custom, on-site program for your organization. For more information, to see the full schedule or register for an upcoming course, please visit: http://www.rackspace.com/cloudbuilders