Agile Development for ERP Migrations

Gone are the days of implementing ERP with linear waterfall development model. Given the cost of ERP implementations and risk of failure, businesses are no longer willing to accept long and painful development process. The agile development model perfected by software development teams is fast becoming the preferred method of ERP implementation.

To succeed in agile ERP implementation, however, it is important to remove infrastructure blocks and enable collaboration from the get go. Most enterprise data center resources are expensive, inflexible and require expert assistance making it not suitable for the agile model. In contrast, Skytap's cloud automation solution provides a scalable cloud platform to keep pace with agile delivery. And because it's a service, you can be up and running with Skytap immediately.

Provision virtual data centers instantly to run ERP and scale as needed

Skytap gives team members instant, self-service access to powerful virtual data center infrastructure over the Web. Creating an environment is as easy as 'point-and-click' from the Skytap Library. Because Skytap is based on open standards, you can deploy your ERP applications in the cloud without any code or architectural changes. And the best part is, you no longer have to wait for servers or storage when you need them. You can add more machines or storage capacity with Skytap's self-service interface.

Conduct collaborative feedback sessions with business users

Many ERP projects fail because ERP implementation teams cannot share live software with business owners and identify gaps and issues early on. Too often ERP teams rely on what they vendor data sheets and demonstrations and assume exact fit. In addition, physical data center resources do not support the collaboration required in this case. Skytap enables team members to publish ERP environments and provide Skytap Resource Link (a URL that points to a multi-machine stack in Skytap). Similar to Webex, Skytap Resource Links enables live collaboration and it is ideal for publishing prototypes and getting iterative feedback from business users.

Enable global ERP development and test environments

With the rise of offshore ERP development and testing, it's likely you have team members working in different parts of the world. Skytap offers distributed teams a common development infrastructure to work on and solves the problem of inconsistent test environments causing issues. Skytap also has a rich user access model to enable teams to isolate external contractors in specific work areas.

Resolve defects with powerful configuration snapshots

Skytap has the ability to snapshot a running multi-machine dev or test stack. This essentially solves the 'no-repro' problem where a developer has to painstakingly try to reproduce a bug from a defect report. Instead, a tester can snapshot the defect at the point of failure and include a Skytap Resource Link in the defect report. A developer can then spin up the environment at a later time and debug the issue.

Imagine the possibilities

Skytap can be used for a broad range of ERP development, migration and testing scenarios, including (but not limited to):

• Developer workstations
• Business analyst workstations
• Business user acceptance sessions
• Parallel development and test environments
• Integration and unit testing
• Capacity planning and load testing
• Performance Testing
• Localization Testing

Download the 451 Group analyst report on 'Cloud Automation' to learn more about the benefits for development and test organizations.