eRacks Open Source Systems announced eRacks Hosting, a new division that will consolidate its dedicated hosting and colocation services. The eRacks Hosting facilities occupy racks in multiple Tier 1 datacenters in Silicon Valley, California, where the Internet backbone and peering are ranked among the top in the world.

eRacks has previously offered hosting and collocation to a select group of customers. Demand for these services has risen sharply in recent years, as organizations have embraced the idea of outsourcing network operations due to concerns of security, reliability and cost-effectiveness. In response, eRacks has decided to extend and formalize its offerings, by creating eRacks Hosting, and launching an e-commerce website www.eRacksHosting.com.

eRacks Hosting offers service in 3 levels: Standard, Professional and Enterprise, in addition to its customized packages. Base prices start at $129 monthly for a Core 2 Duo system (Standard plan). Dual-core (Professional plan) and quad-core systems (Enterprise plan) are also available. Service can be billed monthly, or yearly at a substantial discount. eRacks has long been an enthusiastic advocate of open source solutions, and offers systems configured with the clients' choices of open source operating systems, including: Ubuntu Linux, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, NetBSD, CentOS, Fedora, Debian, Red Hat Linux, SuSE Linux and others. eRacks Hosting offers additional services, including installation and configuration of a set of virtualized servers on the client's dedicated server, as well as software development services. In addition, CPUs, hard drives and memory can be upgraded from the base configuration and other customization is available. Further details can be found at www.eRacksHosting.com , where customers can explore their options and order directly online.

"We have been offering customized hosting and colocation services for several years, and we are pleased to formally offer these services under the eRacks Hosting name. This will position us to continue expanding in this space without sacrificing the personalized support our customers expect," says Joseph Wolff, CEO and Founder of eRacks.

eRacks Hosting technical staff has extensive experience with both customization and virtualization. A recent project with Libre Hosting involved the development of a web-based virtualization infrastructure based on the Open Source Kernel Virtual Machine (KVM), which is built into the Linux kernel. Joseph Wolff adds, "We think that our customers will be delighted by how easy and economical it is to set themselves up with one of our complete hosting plans through eRacksHosting.com. And as always, the eRacks personalized service and support is still there for those who require additional consulting or customization."