Move Your IT Sandbox To The Cloud. Reduce Server Sprawl and IT Costs.
- Enable rapid prototyping and iteration
- Recreate production-like virtual data centers
- Manage usage costs with quota and chargebacks
Most IT sandbox environments have unpredictable usage patterns, frequent set-up and tear-down requirements and minimal change management processes.Using expensive data center resources to serve IT sandbox environments often results in either too much wasted capacity or under provisioning (see graph). This leads to increased data center costs and impaired IT productivity.Moving IT sandboxes to a cloud is an attractive alternative.You may consider both internal and external cloud options, but it is important to keep in mind that not all cloud options are created equal.Internal cloud implementations require hardware and software purchases and a large implementation project which can stretch your limited IT resources and ultimately be susceptible to the capacity utilization challenges mentioned earlier. Most public cloud providers lock customers into proprietary OS and application formats and management APIs or provide cumbersome bare minimum IT policy management.
These limited alternatives create a challenging dilemma for IT managers: how can IT leverage the cloud model to reduce costs and still maintain visibility and control of users, policies, applications, budget, and security?
Skytap's IT Sandbox solution resolves this dilemma.
Skytap's IT Sandbox solution empowers you with your own instance of a cloud-based IT sandbox for a fraction of the cost of managing them in your internal data center.Using a simple self-service web UI, you can instantly provision IT managed sandbox environments for IT or business users and still enforce your IT policies for the entire set of Skytap cloud environments and users.
Skytap's IT Sandbox solution can be used for a broad range of scenarios, including:
- Software Evaluation Labs
- OS Platform Evaluations
- Application Integration Testing
- Developer Workstations
- Load Testing/Load Generation Environments
- IT Skills Assessment, Development and Certification
- New Application User Assessment and Acceptance
Top 5 Features and Benefits at a Glance
| Feature | Key Benefit |
|---|---|
| Virtual Data Center (VDC) Library and Templates | Standardize and Simplify IT Sandbox Provisioning
|
| Snapshotsand Resource Links | Enable Rapid Prototyping and Iteration
|
| Groups, Projects and Roles | Enforce Role Based Access And Usage Policies
|
| Advanced Networks | Recreate Production Like Virtual Data Centers
|
| User Specific Quota Limits, Reporting and Project Chargebacks | Manage Sandbox Usage Costs with Quota And Chargebacks
|
| And More... | Register for a complete demo. |
Standardize and Simplify IT Sandbox Provisioning With Skytap's Cloud Library and Templates
Using Skytap's Cloud Library, you can create "golden" multi-machine images ("templates") for each specific sandbox use case.Application development teams, depending on their various projects, can each have access to different environments.You can grant privileges to users to create multi-machine virtual data centers and they can independently run, suspend, or stop them on demand. You can assign company specific IP ranges, implement firewalls, routing and access control policies to ensure your cloud-based sandbox behaves as if it was in your own data center. This enables your users to create sandbox environments that are similar to your enterprise environments, while simplifying and standardizing your cloud management.
Enable Rapid Prototyping and Iteration Using Snapshots and Clones
Using Skytap's Cloud Automation™ technology, you can empower your users to create multiple sandbox configurations.Your users can run multiple configurations in parallel, increasing their productivity, with minimal IT support. They can recreate database and application failure conditions and evaluate intrusive software tools without impacting your network. Your users can publish Skytap Resource Links to business users to get iterative feedback and then capture the user feedback using Snapshots that save the state of all the machines and applications in a virtual data center.Once the particular sandbox usage is completed, your users can delete them or save as a clone for reuse later.
Recreate Production Like Virtual Data Centers and Advanced Networks
With Skytap's IT Sandbox solution, developing a multi-tier application with clustering and fail-over support is remarkably easy.You can create virtual data center configurations with multiple networks in each configuration, add multiple network adaptors to each virtual machine, connect them to different networks, and then configure routing policies. This ensures your sandbox users have access to production like environments in the cloud. Once they are done with the IT sandbox testing, your users can publish Skytap Resource Links for IT review and approval.Upon approval, those configurations can be easily moved back to your internal data center and will run as expected. This feature dramatically simplifies the task of developing complex enterprise applications in the cloud and moving them back to the data center when ready.
Manage Budget Policies with User Quota and Chargebacks
Many public clouds provide limited controls for IT to manage policies, govern usage, and apply chargebacks. Users who are excited about their agility in the cloud can provision too many virtual environments, and run up the company bill.With Skytap you can implement User or Project level usage limits to ensure your overall cloud usage does not exceed your budget. You can also administer user specific quota limits, providing even more granular control over usage. Finally, you can get comprehensive usage and audit reports to implement chargebacks by project.Only Skytap provides you comprehensive policy control while enabling you to empower end users for self-sufficiency.
Download the 451 Group analyst report to learn more about what "Cloud automation" is all about and how IT organizations can benefit.
