Rackspace acquires MongoDB service provider ObjectRocket

Rise of MongoDB reason for the purchase, says Rackspace VP

Cloud provider Rackspace has acquired ObjectRocket, a MongoDB database as a service provider, to expand its OpenStack-based cloud platform.

ObjectRocket has offices in Boston, Massachusetts, and Silicon Valley, and its main product is based on the MongoDB open-source environment, and sits within the NoSQL database market.

The acquisition is set to close on Wednesday, and Rackspace vice president of technology Nigel Beighton told Computing that the reason for the firm's interest is the rise of MongoDB in the big data space.

"We've been involved with NoSQL for quite some time now and what we have seen is MongoDB rise to the fore. It is a very accessible technology that has a very active community. We wanted to have capability built around MongoDB and then we came across ObjectRocket," Beighton explained.

"What ObjectRocket has done is taken the technology with MongoDB but deliver it as a service and this is the key aspect of the acquisition. It is not about making a new piece of software or doing software distribution or adding something onto OpenStack; it is delivering MongoDB as a service so that somebody can click on to a website and have access to an API, which they can then use with their applications - it is a service not a technology," he added.

Beighton explained that ObjectRocket currently has two datacentres: one on the east coast of the US in Ashburn, Virginia, and one on the west coast in San Jose, California.

The offering will be integrated with Rackspace's other services and available in early March for Rackspace customers in its Chicago facility. Beighton said that the European datacentre would follow on shortly although he did not specify a date.

ObjectRocket also leverages Amazon Web Services Direct Connect service and this will continue to be sold as a standalone service.

"We will happily continue to support that going forward. Having acquired ObjectRocket, we are adding their capability to our own datacentres. We're a great believer in open standards and therefore we're happy to make Mongo open, so if you want to run it on Amazon then you can, or if you want to run this on the open cloud you can do that too," Beighton said.

ObjectRocket pricing will remain the same, starting at $29 per month for a 1GB shard.

As part of the deal, all ObjectRocket's existing staff will move to Rackspace's offices in Austin, Texas.