What started as a way to beat the performance and latency of cloud at better costs has grown into a platform powering real production workloads across a global network of 12+ data centers and 8,000 bare metal. As we grew, our expectations changed too. Not just for the product, but for what infrastructure should feel like when it’s done right.

Infrastructure Is a Means, Not the Goal

Before cloud platforms existed, companies ran servers on-prem. That meant a closet somewhere in the office and a person known as “IT” who everyone relied on when something broke.

It wasn’t great.

So when cloud arrived and removed the burden of keeping infrastructure running, companies rushed in. Developers could finally focus on shipping features instead of babysitting servers.

That shift taught the industry something important: developers don’t wake up excited to log into a console just to manage infrastructure. They care about outcomes.

That’s still true today.

Most customers don’t come to us asking for servers just to have servers. They talk about databases that need better performance and low-latency. Storage systems with consistent throughput. AI/ML projects that require high compute, bandwidth, and direct access to GPUs. Platforms that need to scale without costs spiraling out of control or having to worry about procuring IPv4.

Infrastructure is a means to an outcome.

Once that really clicked for us, it changed how we approached this rebuild. If infrastructure exists to support products and businesses, the platform shouldn’t get in the way. Provisioning should be fast and dependable. Management should be straightforward. And anything you can do in the UI should also be available through the API or CLI.

Why Bare Metal, Now

Cloud made it easy to get started. But as systems grew and matured, a lot of teams found themselves dealing with more complexity, less predictability, and higher costs than they expected.

Today’s workloads are more performance-sensitive and cost-conscious. Teams want control over hardware and networking, performance they can rely on, and setups that don’t have to squeeze into a cloud-shaped box. They want infrastructure that scales cleanly, and most importantly, provides them with a solution, not another problem.

For things like high-performance databases, low-latency networking, storage-heavy systems, and AI or blockchain workloads, running closer to the metal just makes sense.

Bare metal isn’t a step backward. It’s a practical response to where infrastructure is right now.

The hard part is making bare metal feel simple without taking away its power. That means giving developers the same kinds of tools they’re used to in the cloud, without forcing them to learn an entirely new stack.

And that's where Rackdog had to rebuild…

The Scaling Problem

In the early days, Rackdog was built by a small team focused on solving immediate problems. We relied on existing software products for provisioning and inventory management. That worked well enough to get started and to grow.

As our footprint expanded, the cracks began to show.

Each new data center added operational complexity. Provisioning workflows varied by location. Installation times became inconsistent. Errors required manual intervention. Tracking hardware state across regions became harder than it should have been.

Nothing catastrophically failed, but the experience no longer met the bar we wanted to set.

Expectations were rising too. Teams wanted to deploy faster, see exactly what was happening in their infrastructure, and get consistent behavior everywhere. They wanted bare metal to feel solid and predictable, not hacked together.

We had reached the limits of what generic tooling could support.

Building Our Own Control Plane

At that point, the conclusion was unavoidable. If bare metal was going to remain our core product, we needed to own the entire provisioning and management experience. We already built servers why not build the software to simplify using them?

So we built a new control plane from the ground up.

We built our provisioning system to match how we actually run servers. Everything follows a clear, predictable flow, which means faster setup, fewer surprises, and infrastructure that just behaves the way you expect. It's fast and it's repeatable.

On top of that foundation, we built a new customer-facing portal that exposes the right level of control without overwhelming users. Common operations are straightforward. Simple yet still powerful. Automation isn’t an afterthought. It’s how the platform is designed to be used.

This architecture gives us consistency where it matters and flexibility where it counts. It also lets us evolve the platform quickly as customer needs change.

The Next Chapter of Rackdog

Today, we’re introducing the next chapter of Rackdog.

A redesigned website. A refreshed brand identity. And a completely new bare metal portal for provisioning and managing servers, powered by our in-house platform built specifically for Rackdog and our customers.

What’s New

• A refreshed Rackdog brand identity and website

• A new bare metal portal for provisioning and managing servers

• Faster, more consistent deployments across all locations

• A foundation built for automation, repeatability, and scale

These changes give us tighter control over reliability and performance, while giving customers a simpler and more predictable experience.

What Stays the Same

For existing customers, nothing changes today.

Pricing stays the same. Locations stay the same. Support stays the same.

Existing services will continue running on our current billing system. All new services will be provisioned through the new Metal portal. Over time, everything will come together into a single, unified platform.

Looking Ahead

This rebuild is the foundation for what comes next.

With a modern control plane in place, we can move faster and go further. We’re working toward more managed services built on bare metal, deeper developer tooling, and tighter integration with automation and deployment workflows.

Our goal is simple: make bare metal feel as programmable and approachable as the cloud, while preserving the performance, control, and cost advantages that make physical infrastructure compelling.

This is the next chapter of Rackdog.

We’re excited to build it alongside our customers.