Rip Curl Rides the Big Data Wave With Rackspace SYDNEY,

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA --(Marketwired - July 28, 2014) - Iconic Aussie surf brand, Rip Curl and digital marketing agency, VML Australia, have launched Rip Curl Search GPS, powered by ObjectRocket from Rackspace® Hosting ( NYSE : RAX ). This world-first wearable surfing technology enables Rip Curl to capture and analyse surf data, as well as refine its offering to customers through greater services and products.

The revolutionary Rip Curl Search GPS Watch captures data from a surfer's session, including wave count, speeds reached, ride distance and session distances. Surfers then sync their watch to an iPhone, iPad, or desktop computer, re-living and sharing their surf experience on an interactive map. Surf data can be analysed in real-time and presented as summarised statistics for every wave, enabling surfers to gain insights into their performance and find areas for improvement.

Rip Curl Search GPS is backed and enabled by ObjectRocket, Rackspace's Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS) for NoSQL MongoDB. ObjectRocket is a sharded and fully managed service for MongoDB, built with a set of tools and APIs designed to maximise uptime and reduce administration time for developers. Highly scalable, it allows customers to grow with their needs over time and scale up or down dependent upon the demand they experience from their own customers.

"The capture and subsequent analysis of surf data presents endless possibilities and opportunities for us," Shane Helm, global chairman - Watches and Equipment Division at Rip Curl comments. "Using ObjectRocket for Rip Curl Search GPS helps us capture data and provides deep insights into surfing patterns and behaviour. We can then offer improvements to the surfing community, as well as help refine our own offering to surfers."

"ObjectRocket allows us to scale based on our demand whenever we need to. If demand peaks or falls for the service at different times of the year, we have a solution that will automatically adjust with us and is managed by experts. It is highly cost effective with 10,000 users, 100,000 users or 500,000 users -- wherever they are in the world."

Rackspace customer, VML Australia, designed, architected and developed the Rip Curl Search GPS ecosystem. Jeff Donios, technical director and architect comments, "ObjectRocket is the foundation for the ecosystem's world-wide data storage and analysis. ObjectRocket and Rackspace enabled us to quickly figure out how to scale the application, allowing us to focus our resources on developing the core product and algorithms of the ecosystem. All the scaling, sharding and performance of MongoDB is managed by the experts at ObjectRocket and Rackspace."

With the open source-based MongoDB solution, Rackspace broadens its portfolio to offer Australian customers a NoSQL DBaaS for big data applications. This offering is built upon hardware optimised specifically for MongoDB and easily accessed and integrated into existing systems.

Rackspace is an excellent option for the rising wave of cloud adopters, such as VML that want a trusted provider to help design and manage its cloud. Managed cloud offers the company the power of cloud computing without the pain and expense of managing it itself. This enables the firm to focus its scarce engineering resources on the core business, which is pursuing new products and customers.

"Having the right IT infrastructure to support wearable technologies such as Rip Curl Search GPS is critical to the overall success of the product. It is estimated that 30 billion devices will be in the market by 2020 ¹ , which will generate vast quantities of data. That data needs IT infrastructure that can capture, store, process and analyse, meaning that companies need to consider flexible, scalable IT solutions that can be deployed quickly and often in real-time," said Angus Dorney, general manager, Rackspace Australia and New Zealand.

ObjectRocket further information

Customers are able to choose from a range of transparent pricing plans based upon individual data storage requirements, details of which can be found at ( www.rackspace.com.au/objectrocket ). Customers can also have a one month free trial when they sign up online.

Product information summary:

• Highly Available - Each instance resides on multiple redundant pieces of infrastructure, while databases are replicated and optionally exist in multiple geo-diverse data centres.

• Automatically Scalable - RocketScale™ technology inherently shards instances, enabling developers to automatically provision and manage instances. Customers can choose from a variety of plans to fit their workload -- from one gigabyte to multi-terabyte scale.

• Consistently Fast Performance - The complete stack has been optimised specifically for MongoDB applications. The network stack, file system, OS kernel, and other resources have been configured to make MongoDB as fast as possible. All data is stored on redundant, blazing-fast Solid State Drives.

About Rackspace Hosting Rackspace ( NYSE : RAX ) is the #1 managed cloud company. Its technical expertise and Fanatical Support® allow companies to tap the power of the cloud without the pain of hiring experts in dozens of complex technologies. Rackspace is also the leader in hybrid cloud, giving each company the best fit for its unique needs -- whether on single- or multi-tenant servers, or a combination of those platforms. Rackspace is the founder of OpenStack®, the open-source operating system for the cloud. Headquartered in San Antonio, Rackspace serves more than 200,000 business customers from data centers on four continents. It ranks #29 on Fortune's list of 100 Best Companies to Work For. For more information, visit www.rackspace.com.au .

Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions. If such risks or uncertainties materialize or such assumptions prove incorrect, the results of Rackspace Hosting could differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements and assumptions. All statements other than statements of historical fact are statements that could be deemed forward-looking statements, including any statements concerning expected development, performance or operational results related to any particular customer or customers of our customers associated with our hosting solutions; any other statements of expectation or belief; and any statements of assumptions underlying any of the foregoing. Risks, uncertainties and assumptions include issues relating to the performance of a customer's configuration caused by forces outside of the control of Rackspace; changes in the economy, technological and competitive factors, regulatory factors, and other risks that are described in Rackspace Hosting's Form 10-Q for the year ended March 31, 2014, filed with the SEC on May 12, 2014. Except as required by law, Rackspace Hosting assumes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements publicly, or to update the reasons actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements, even if new information becomes available in the future.

¹ Source: Gartner news release: http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2621015