Yesterday Rackspace customers were pleasantly surprised to find a new release of the company’s free Android app. The latest version sports a new look and features an array of options for managing cloud deployments on the go.

The reworked interface makes it easier to navigate the app and “find exactly what you’re looking for.” It’s complemented by an array of new admin functions, including the ability to manage multiple Rackspace accounts, check system status, and reboot, rename, resize and rebuild servers. Additionally, users can now change root passwords, ping specific servers from multiple data centers, and call Rackspace support directly from within the app without switching tabs.

The new release also fixes the issues that caused the previous of version of the application to crash, and introduces support for Rackspace’s OpenStack-based cloud platform.
The app is currently available for Android smartphones. There’s no word on an iOS version, but Rackspace senior product manager Jorge Astroga said that his firm is “definitely thinking about tablet support in the near future.”

Recent developments suggest that the cloud vendor is stepping up product development. This week’s app roll out comes on the heels of a partnership between Rackspace and The European Organization for Nuclear Research to create a federation service for the former’s cloud portfolio, including its PaaS suite, OpenStack, and the Rackspace Private Cloud architecture. The tool is expected to hit general availability within a year.

CERN was one of the very first major organizations to adopt OpenStack. The open platform powers two of the data centers assigned to process the 25 petabytes of data its Large Hadron Collider (LHC) generates every year.