Visual Studio 2010 Plugs Into Rackspace Cloud

Rackspace has released a plug-in to allow Visual Studio .NET developers to deploy applications directly into its cloud infrastructure.

The Rackspace Cloud Plug-In for Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 toolkit links with Rackspace Cloud Servers for Windows to reduce deployment and provisioning time and provide users with a single cloud management portal, the company said.

Deploy Directly To The Cloud

New application programming interface (API) features for the plug-in include the ability to launch, reboot and fully control all servers; rebuild servers from images and create custom images; schedule application backups; upsize and scale server configurations as needed; and manage and share IP addresses.

“Rackspace has again demonstrated it is a key player in the cloud by providing the entire MSDN community and all .NET developers a way to quickly develop, deploy and manage cloud applications written in a development environment familiar to them,” said Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president of the Developer Division at Microsoft, in a statement.

“This effort highlights the openness of Visual Studio and Microsoft’s unique position within the cloud computing ecosystem, as both a partner to other cloud providers and a cloud provider itself. The Rackspace Plug-In for Visual Studio 2010 toolkit is intended to help with developers looking for an easier way to deploy their applications, websites and blogs to the cloud.”

Available as a single-download to Rackspace Cloud Servers for Windows users, Cloud Plug-In provides developers with a variety of .NET templates and plug-ins in an effort to make the platform a one-stop-shop for total cloud deployment and management. Built by Neudesic, the toolkit for Visual Studio 2010 is designed to eliminate the need for managing separate cloud and application environments by providing developers a full view of their environment.

“We’re committed to making development for the Rackspace Cloud as easy and intuitive as possible, and nothing makes more sense than giving developers the ability to manage their cloud from within the Visual Studio platform they’re already so accustomed to,” said Pat Matthews, vice president and general manager of cloud at Rackspace. “By partnering with Neudesic and Microsoft, we hope to help the vast MSDN community streamline and simplify its deployment and management of applications on the cloud. This new toolkit will eliminate the need to toggle back and forth between the development platform and a separate cloud management panel and save developers precious time.”