Rackspace Hosting has launched its Critical Site Service, already used by US customers such as Mazda and Blackline Systems for additional control over application performance , for the European market.

The cloud computing and hosting company said for a cost, the new service gives customers dealing with mission-critical applications the option of increasing delivery performance and analysis.

Customers who sign up receive the help of a team of dedicated web-scale engineers which can provide detailed reports on application performance as well as reviews on infrastructure and architecture inside the data center.

The team will be on hand to stop potential issues before they arise, according to Rackspace, and can act as first responders when it comes to resolving the issues.

Rackspace SVP David Kelly said customers in the US including Mazda and Hawaiian Airlines have been using the additional service offer, which adds 10 to 20% to the traditional enterprise cost depending on the number of devices included  but delivers an SLA of 100% for Production Platform uptime ÔÇô to keep mission-critical sites running.

"We are witnessing a revolution in how businesses choose to buy and consume IT," Kelly said.

"Where in the past organizations ran their own entire IT operation, increasingly they are choosing to buy IT as a service."

Rackspace claims the SLA for Critical Sites is one of the most aggressive in the industry. Along with the 100% Production Platform uptime, it includes a guarantee that customers will be notified within five minutes of performance issues, will receive a one-hour hardware replacement guarantee and will receive double their money back if the SLA is not met.

Rackspace held its first board meeting in Europe this week, a sign, it said, that demand in the European market is rising in regards to cloud and hosted services.