Skytap Now Ports To The Amazon Cloud

Cloud automation company Skytap has launched advanced integration capabilities with Amazon Web Services (AWS) that allow customers to develop and test on Skytap Cloud workloads that mirror AWS production environments.

The company provides a platform that has until now been used for VMware-based environments. Companies export their virtual machines to Skytap and then provision accordingly. With AWS, customers will pull Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) into Skytap and then adjust according to instance size. Once they export and set the parameters, they can then export templates. The data stored behind the scenes is AWS metadata and AWS images.

The templates can be organized into projects and then into multi-machine configurations that run on AWS. The service is designed for larger deployments, with multiple VMs doing continuous integration. With the templates, the service allows for companies to develop, test, migrate, evaluate, demo and train on new and existing applications in the cloud.

Skytap uses virtual private computing (VPC) to connect to AWS EC2 and Amazon Elastic Block storage which is connected with RESTful APIs. For continuous integration, Skytap has a Jenkins plug-in to the VPN. For example, with the Jenkins plug-in, the developer checks in code and Jenkins does a build. The customer then plugs into Skytap and creates tasks that can then be checked for bugs early in the lifecycle, avoiding hassles down the line. By spinning up environments on demand, Skytap can provide a dynamic continuous integration process.

Skytap provides the capability to move multi-tiered enterprise applications with clustering and fail-over networking capabilities into the cloud. The resulting cost savings can be significant. Companies are seeking ways to pull the bits and pieces together to build a cloud environment. Skytap automates the process.

Moving digital loads around has connections to the physical world. It’s quite a task simply to dig a hole for a new building’s foundation as much as it is a complexity to move virtual workloads from a corporate server to an elastic service like AWS.

Moving workloads to AWS makes sense for companies looking for an innovative edge. But it is the orchestration demands that make it so complex. At re:Invent this week, it can be expected that there will be announcements that are designed to automate the complexities of connecting enterprise workloads to AWS. Skytap is a window into that world and how customers will use services as a virtual middleware to connect the physical and the virtual world.

The company will showcase the integration capabilities at AWS re:Invent this week.