Skytap Updates With Cloud Orchestration Features

Skytap announced new cloud orchestration and configuration routing features. Seattle-based Skytap provides self-service cloud automation solutions to help companies move complex IT environments to the cloud. The company is venture-backed and consists of a number of experienced veterans from HP, Google, RealNetworks, Quantum and Microsoft.

With the new release of Skytap, development and test teams can easily replicate their in-house environments in the cloud while sharing server resources such as a Microsoft Team Foundation Server, an HP Application Life-cycle Management server or MySQL database.  Users can also easily orchestrate the start-up, shutdown and suspend sequence of virtual data centers that include shared server resources without requiring IT support.

“As cloud services mature, enterprises will expect the cloud to more closely mirror traditional data center processes,” said Rachel Chalmers, research director at The 451 Group. “To achieve this, cloud providers must offer sophisticated automation capabilities that drive new levels of agility and that lift the support burden from the IT team. End-users will benefit more from cloud services that automate the networking and workflow processes already used in their data center environments.”

Configuration Routing and Cloud Orchestration

Sytap's configuration Routing features mimic a traditional server "hub/spoke" model in the cloud where users can connect any number of server configurations to a centralized server configuration and setup custom DNS services. With the Configuration Routing feature, development managers can automate this process utilizing a simple self-service user interface in the cloud. With the goal of getting rid of complicated scripts and automation software, Skytap's orchestration feature enables users to specify the sequence and scheduling dependencies through the Skytap user interface.

"Enterprises are demanding the same type of automation and workflow processes they rely on in their physical data centers as part of their cloud deployments," said Brian White, vice president of products at Skytap. "With this release, Skytap empowers organizations with the same level of control and automation found in a traditional data center, while allowing them to benefit from the low cost and scalability of the cloud model."