Rackspace Hosting has launched Australia’s first public cloud offering powered by OpenStack.

This follows the opening of the company’s Sydney data center in February this year, on a 12-acre site which is managed by Digital Realty.

The Rackspace Hybrid Cloud combines elements of public cloud, private cloud and/or dedicated servers, and allows them to work together as one infrastructure.

Rackspace director and general manager for Australia and New Zealand Angus Dorney said hybrid cloud can often provide better performance, reliability, security and lower total cost of ownership than a public cloud can deliver on its own.

“We believe that a hybrid cloud option changes the way Australian businesses will make their cloud buying decisions,” Dorney said.

“As cloud adoption increases in Australia, businesses are becoming more aware of proprietary technologies that lock them in to specific architectures and vendors. Today’s news frees Australian businesses from the vendor lock-in that they face at other major cloud providers, and provides choice for them to deploy an open hybrid cloud.”

The Sydney data centre opened earlier this year to meet increased demand from Australian companies for managed virtualization.

“We’re delivering high performing hybrid cloud solutions, while empowering customers to choose features, services, prices and locations based on the needs of their business,” added Dorney.

"It's great to see innovators like Kogan.com, Australia's biggest online retailer, already signing on to be early adopters of our new local hybrid cloud, helping them scale their infrastructure and cater for their growth."