Rackspace Technology, the multi-cloud MSP, has partnered with Akamai Technologies to expand its cloud security services small and midsize businesses (SMBs) as well as enterprise accounts.
The relationship combines Akamai’s Web Application and API Protection with Rackspace Elastic Engineering for Security (which is a managed service). The goal: Allow end-customers. Additional benefits, the duo asserts, include automatic API discovery and security, adaptive and more accurate detections, built-in bot mitigation and cloud topology/architecture.
Rackspace Managed Security Services: Growing Focus?
The partnership is particularly timely for Rackspace. The multi-cloud MSP is better known for various cloud and application migration capabilities. The company has a managed security strategy, but Rackspace executives barely mentioned security opportunities during the MSP's February 2022 earnings call with Wall Street analysts.
Meanwhile, Rackspace investors ($RXT) appear concerned about potential slowing grow at the company. The 2022 growth concerns surfaced after Rackspace laid off 10 percent of its staff and offshored some support responsibilities in mid-2021.
Instead of competing against public cloud providers, Rackspace in recent years shifted to multi-cloud partnerships with Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform. Moreover, Rackspace has expanded its co-managed, multi-cloud security services.
Rackspace Acquisitions
The Rackspace business transformation has involved multiple tuck-in acquisitions and investments — such as Microsoft Azure partner Just Analytics, and managed Kubernetes provider Platform 9. Additional buyouts have included RelationEdge, Datapipe, TriCore Solutions, and Onica.
