Frequently Asked Questions

What does Skytap do?

Skytap offers a complete self-service cloud automation solution for dynamic workloads, such as application development and test, IT ops testing, virtual learning or software demos. Because it’s a service, it enables users to gain immediate access to on-demand virtual machines and data centers, while enabling IT to maintain complete control over security policies and usage.

Why would companies choose Skytap's service over investing in their own hardware and software?

Skytap's on-demand service has a number of advantages over on-premise hardware and software, especially for dynamic workloads. Skytap's service enables hardware and software to be accessed on demand, so organizations have access to virtually unlimited computing capacity without the associated capital expenses, ongoing administration, and frequent wait time associated with procurement. In addition, customers pay only for what they use, resulting in much more efficient use of resources and lower costs. Furthermore, because Skytap's data center is virtualized and offers a shared pool of resources, it delivers greater efficiency than most organizations can typically achieve with physical hardware.

What are the benefits of Skytap's solution over other virtualization solutions?

In addition to what is offered by basic virtualization solutions, Skytap provides state-of-the-art automation capabilities such as virtual machine provisioning and workflow, job brokering and management, security, remote access, role-based access control, built-in storage management, and reporting. Organizations obtain all these capabilities immediately upon signing up for the service, without the cost and risk of implementing an in-house solution.

How is Skytap's service different from Amazon EC2 or other cloud-computing offerings?

Amazon EC2 and other cloud-computing offerings typically offer a platform that provides raw compute, storage and data transfer capacity. A customer still needs skilled development resources to build a custom solution on the platform. Skytap takes a different approach by offering complete solutions that combines virtual data center technology with an easy-to-use automation and application layer. A Skytap user only needs a Web browser to access the service and can be up and running within minutes of signing up. In addition, most cloud-computing platforms only support open-source operating systems, whereas Skytap also supports commercial operating systems such as Microsoft Windows XP and Windows 7. Finally, the Skytap solution includes a number of innovations including a fully-featured SaaS application, a pre-populated software library that includes major operating systems, databases, and applications, and high performance for virtualization operations such as creating virtual data center snapshots.

What does Skytap cost?

Skytap subscriptions start at $500/month. The subscription includes access to:
- Skytap's SaaS-based application
- Pre-configured virtual machine images in the Skytap Library
- On-demand virtual infrastructure, including server, storage and networking resources

Additional capacity can be scaled up on demand for virtual machine hours, storage, and data transfer.

Can I use my current virtual images in Skytap?

Skytap enables virtual images to be uploaded, imported, and utilized to leverage previous virtualization investments.

How does Skytap keep my environment secure?

Skytap utilizes some of the most advanced technology for Internet security available today. When you access our site using Mozilla Firefox or Microsoft Internet Explorer, Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology protects your information using both server authentication and data encryption, ensuring that your data is safe, secure, and available only to registered users in your organization.

Skytap provides each user in your organization with a unique user name and password that must be entered each time a user logs on. Skytap issues a session "cookie" only to record encrypted authentication information for the duration of a specific session. The session "cookie" does not include either the username or password of the user. Skytap does not use "cookies" to store other confidential user and session information, but instead implements more advanced security methods based on dynamic data and encoded session IDs.

In addition, Skytap is hosted in a physically secure datacenter and uses an advanced firewall, among other technologies, to prevent unauthorized access.

What are the financial benefits of utilizing Skytap?

Skytap users typically experience financial benefits in 3 primary areas:

• Deferred and/or reduced capital cost: Users can easily save 50% or more over the life of their projects as they only pay for what they use and don't have to live with under-utilized, depreciating hardware and software on their balance sheets.
• Rapid data center deployment: The Skytap Library™ enables users to rapidly build and deploy multi-machine configurations utilizing pre-configured and fully patched virtual images. The Skytap Library includes major operating systems, databases, and applications in multiple languages.
• Faster bug identification and resolution: Skytap's capability for instant collaboration on software issues and defects in a Web-based project-oriented environment ensures global development and test organizations resolve issues as if they were in the same office. Skytap's instant snapshot functionality enables entire multi-machine environments to be suspended and shared with distributed, global team members to enable rapid reproduction, diagnosis, and resolution of software defects.

Who are Skytap's partners?

Skytap's partners include a number of industry leaders including the major technology vendors and a number of independent software providers (ISVs) and service providers. For a full list of Skytap's partners, see www.skytap.com/partners.