Seattle, Wash. – November 14, 2012 – Skytap, Inc., the leading provider of self-service cloud automation solutions, today announced the addition of a multi-virtual private network (Multi-VPN) capability to its industry-leading AutoNetworks™ technology. AutoNetworks is Skytap’s unique software-defined networking capabilities for complex, multi-network, multi-machine environments. With multi-VPN capability, users can create multiple two-way secure connections between their Skytap virtual environments and on-premise servers, or connect a single Skytap environment to multiple geographically distributed on-premise endpoints. Multi-VPN capability provides enterprises with the easiest, fastest, and most flexible way to create secure hybrid clouds.
“In a recent Gartner survey, close to half of respondents believe they will be using hybrid cloud by 2015. To do so, IT architectures and processes will need to change and extend — and the same is true for security capabilities,” said John Pescatore, VP Distinguished Analyst at Gartner. “Now is the time to be planning how to ensure company and customer data can be protected when public and private cloud services are used and also how security policies and architectures can take advantage of cloud delivery to actually increase levels of security.”
“Moving our development and testing environment to Skytap Cloud has accelerated our software release cycles, boosted productivity, and improved quality,” said Keith Weisel, manager of application development at Dendreon Corporation. “The new multi-VPN feature enables us to securely connect multiple locations and teams into Skytap Cloud, providing a secure hybrid cloud solution that is ideal for our application lifecycle management process.”
Multi-VPN is the latest addition to Skytap AutoNetworks, a rich set of functionality that leverages software-defined networking for complex multi-machine cloud environments. AutoNetworks empowers customers with self-service hybrid clouds as well as advanced network creation, management, and security.
- For hybrid clouds, AutoNetworks offers the self-service creation and management of multi point-to-point VPN connections via IPsec, one-click network connections from environments to VPN tunnels, and self-healing VPN connections via dead peer detection.
- AutoNetworks also empowers self-service network creation and management for each environment, automatic management of IP addresses for networks within an environment (DHCP), automatic name resolution services for VMs on a network (DNS), and the ability to customize to use external custom name resolution services (custom DNS) for VMs on a network.
- Lastly, AutoNetworks enables the automatic creation of network-isolated environments; one-click options to expose environments via public IPs and specific ports; one-click network connections between environments within Skytap Cloud using inter-configuration network routing; and the ability to create multiple networks for multi-tier architectures (e.g., database back-end, web front-end).
“Skytap customers are using AutoNetworks to dynamically create over 2,000 networks each day in Skytap Cloud,” said Brian White, vice president of products at Skytap. “Multi-VPN capability delivers on our customers’ desire to easily and flexibly use Skytap Cloud as a secure extension to their on-premise resources, starting with dynamic workloads including development and testing, virtual training, and software demos where the business benefits of moving to the cloud are compelling.”
Introducing CloudControl™ Scheduler
Skytap also announced the availability of Scheduler, a new CloudControl™ feature, which allows customers to automate state change operations of Skytap Cloud configurations and templates. Users can create a schedule by choosing the resource in Skytap Cloud they want to automate, the action to be performed—run, save, suspend, or shut down—and the time the action should take place.
For example, customers can accelerate development and testing workflows by scheduling automated unit and functional tests to run nightly; schedule load tests to run during off-peak hours; or schedule daily access for off-shore testing teams. For virtual training, customers can schedule virtual classroom environments to run on the specific days and hours of a recurring training class calendar, or make sure all Skytap Cloud environments are initiated and suspended at the start and finish of each business day. Once a scheduled action is assigned, Skytap users receive automated e-mail notifications when the task has completed. With the automated resource control capabilities provided by Scheduler, customers can increase productivity by eliminating repetitive and manual tasks.
Skytap CloudControl is a set of unique features that provide enterprises with advanced cloud resource management, automated control, and powerful administration. Scheduler is the latest addition to CloudControl, which also includes the ability for Skytap Cloud administrators to assign resource limit quotas for users; set maximum burstable limits; send automated e-mail notifications as quota limits are approached; assign role-based access privileges for all users; create usage reports; enable users to create clones of complete environments; and save complete environments as point-in-time templates that capture memory state and all network settings.
