Cloud provider Rackspace today announced the availability of its managed security offering on Microsoft Azure.

Launched in September, Rackspace Managed Security provides host and network security at all times and includes a Rackspace response team that can remove customers from a bad situation.

“Most security companies provide tools to help identify attacks, but don’t actually prevent a breach,” says Bryan Thompson, Rackspace’s general manager of OpenStack Private Cloud. “Not only do we provide tools, but we assume there will be a breach and we need to respond by removing customers from the dangerous environment before the attackers are able to do damage.”

The integration of Azure with Rackspace Managed Security means that anyone who operates on Azure and needs security will now be able to use Rackspace’s system. However, a large hurdle for Rackspace has been getting its security management to run on all these different cloud platforms, Thompson says.

“Our goal is to get to a point where our customers don’t have to worry about what platform they are operating on, and where we can create a virtual network that can span all cloud networks that you can treat as one fully virtualized network, adding security layers as needed,” Thompson explains.

Rackspace already runs its managed security on Amazon Web Services (AWS), Rackspace Dedicated Hosting, and Rackspace Managed VMware Cloud.

In related news, Rackspace also announced today that it is the first to reach 1 billion server hours operating production-ready OpenStack clouds. Having helped create OpenStack in 2010 alongside NASA, Rackspace has contributed more than 70 percent of the OpenStack code.

The Rackspace OpenStack product portfolio includes Rackspace Private Cloud powered by OpenStack, Rackspace Private Cloud powered by Red Hat, and Rackspace Public Cloud.