Rackspace shelled out an undisclosed sum for Exceptional Cloud Services, a San-Francisco-based startup that develops solution for Redis. Redis is a popular open source key-value store that is designed to support large databases which process transactions at very rapid speeds – in other words, Big Data.

As a part of the deal, Rackspace is acquiring the rights for Exceptional Cloud Services’ three software products: the Exceptional.io error tracking engine, a supplementary visualization platform called Airbrake.io, and the Redis to Go management automation framework. The company says that these solutions are used by over 50,000 developers worldwide.

Besides acquiring the IP, Rackspace is absorbing Exceptional Cloud Services’ talent. The startup’s R&D muscle will be moved to the cloud host’s San Francisco branch, and its sales and marketing department will be integrated into Rackspace’s San Antonio office.

“Our focus on the developer community is deeper than ever before and we are carefully adding strategic technologies to our open hybrid cloud portfolio, while keeping the needs of application developers in mind,” said Pat Matthews the senior vice president of corporate development at Rackspace.

“Through the acquisition of Exceptional Cloud Services, we’re gaining technology and expertise that will provide startups and cloud developers with the tools that help them deliver more reliable customer experiences and to bring the next generation of cloud-based apps to market faster.”

Rackspace has developed a taste for NoSQL recently. Just last month the company bought out ObjectRocket, a DB-as-a-service startup sells a hosted environment for running MongoDB. The cloud platform, which is available starting at $29 per 1GB, is currently being migrated to Rackspace’s data centers.

The Big Data movement is picking up steam and everyone, including Rackspace and competitors such as Amazon, want a piece of the pie.  It’s a complex and massive shift that’s taking place in the market, where RackSpace’s own open source project, OpenStack, is disrupting the industry.  Here with more on this cloud war, particularly with amazon and Rackspace’s earlier initiatives, is Wikibon analyst Dave Vellante, who appeared on this morning’s NewsDesk show with Kristin Feledy.