Data center services provider Rackspace has launched its cloud-based load-balancing services in the UK about three months after launching the offering in the US market.

There are two most common use scenarios for load balancers: rapid cloud capacity growth and building availability into cloud-based applications. The offering can be seamlessly integrate with cloud servers, as well as dedicated servers.

Rackspace said its cloud load balancers enable customers to build robust high-availability cloud configurations quickly and easily. In the rapid-growth use scenario, load balancers can be used to balance traffic across two or more cloud servers to ensure there is enough capacity to handle a demand jump.

Josh Odom, product line leader of platform for Rackspace's cloud-service division, said load balancing was fundamental to hosting applications in the cloud. "We relied heavily on input from our customers in developing an offering that we believe exceeds the capabilities of other load balancing options on the market today."

True to the cloud model, the offering uses pay-as-you-go pricing, where a customer pays for each balancer, the number of concurrent connections and bandwidth by the hour. There are no upfront fees.

According to Rackspace estimates, each cloud load balancer instance will cost £0.01 per hour, or about £7.30 per month. The monthly cost of 100 concurrent connections would be the same.

Rackspace's bandwidth rates are £0.12 per 1Gb out and £0.05 per 1Gb in.