Skytap taps on VMware's Cloud

Today at VMworld in Las Vegas, Skytap, Inc., a leading provider of cloud-based virtual infrastructure solutions, announced it has joined the VMware vCloud Initiative to participate in developing an integrated set of services via standard APIs that allow the seamless extension of traditional IT into the cloud. Skytap's existing cloud-based Virtual Lab platform enables organizations to adopt a "hybrid" IT model whereby cloud resources can be used to replace existing high-cost, dynamic environments such as application quality assurance (QA), pre-production, training and IT prototyping environments. By joining the VMware vCloud Initiative, Skytap will work closely with VMware on standardized APIs to ensure easy migration of virtual environments from onsite IT to the cloud.

"A common misconception people have about cloud computing is that it has to be an all or nothing decision," said Theresa Lanowitz, founder of analyst firm voke. "Skytap's API and advanced networking features allow companies to progressively adopt cloud resources without completely abandoning the business processes and applications they've already established in their onsite environment. By joining the VMware vCloud Initiative, Skytap will provide integration with the VMware virtualization platform to deliver seamless 'cloudbursting' capabilities to customers."

Bridging Internal and External Clouds

Unlike most cloud computing offerings where applications must be specifically rewritten for the cloud, Skytap allows companies to run their existing applications, virtual machines and systems unchanged in the cloud. Skytap provides an API for controlling cloud resources and advanced networking to connect back to onsite resources.

"We're enthusiastic about joining the VMware vCloud Initiative because it will help us give VMware customers powerful new capabilities," said Scott Roza, chief executive officer of Skytap. "We believe the model of 'hybrid' cloud computing will be broadly adopted, and has tremendous potential to improve IT's responsiveness to the business while increasing efficiencies and lowering costs."

Using a 'hybrid' cloud computing model, organizations now have a way to rapidly realize the benefits of 'cloud economics.' The hybrid approach provides a low-risk adoption path to cloud computing, and can deliver outstanding ROI compared to dynamic environments that fluctuate dramatically and are expensive to administer. In a hybrid model, companies may run their production applications onsite while conducting all their development and testing in the cloud. This enables on-demand scaling of test environments as needed and eliminates the cost of underutilized hardware. This approach also allows organizations to benefit from the management and automation capabilities of a fully automated hosted virtual lab solution, leading to huge productivity increases.

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