New toolkit enables .NET developers worldwide to seamlessly extend development and deployment to the company's Cloud Servers for Windows.

Rackspace Hosting, a web hosting company, today announced the Rackspace Cloud Plug-In for Microsoft Visual Studio 2010, a Visual Studio toolkit that enables .NET developers worldwide to seamlessly extend development and deployment to Rackspace Cloud Servers for Windows. The company states that this set of tools allows developers to deploy applications written with Visual Studio tools directly to its cloud infrastructure. The toolkit significantly reduces deployment and provisioning time and provides users with a single cloud management portal.

It explains that with this new Rackspace Cloud Plug-In for Visual Studio 2010, developers will be fully aware of everything going on with their cloud server instances when they are developing or deploying an application, thus reducing overall complexity and errors by providing a layer of automation not possible without integration. The toolkit provides a new level of abstraction, making it easier and faster than ever for .NET developers to create and deploy applications to Cloud Servers for Windows. Additional application programming interface (API) features of the Rackspace Cloud Plug-In for Visual Studio 2010 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
• Manage and share IP addresses
  

The company further states that available through a single-download to its Cloud Servers for Windows users, the Rackspace Cloud Plug-In for Visual Studio 2010 provides .NET developers with a variety of templates and plug-ins that effectively make the developer platform a one-stop-shop for total cloud deployment and management. Built by Neudesic, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, 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.

It articulates that to download the Rackspace Cloud Plug-In for Visual Studio 2010, users need only to establish a Rackspace Cloud Servers for Windows account and then follow the steps to download the kit. Cloud Servers for Windows delivers a scalable environment ideal for Windows-based hosting, testing and developing of applications, and for supporting the high levels of traffic required for launching online gaming platforms or the next social networking phenomenon.

"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, VP and GM of Cloud, 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."

"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 Corp. "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."