See You at Agile Development West: June 13 and 14

Skytap is a proud gold sponsor of Agile Development Conference West 2012–six days of interaction between industry experts and peers in the agile community, with learning sessions that help IT professionals make a powerful impact in their job roles and organizations. About the event: Discover Agile Development Conference West 2012 and take back the latest

So, Skytap—What Are You Anyhow?

Considering the pace at which cloud computing is moving, it’s no surprise that many have a tough time putting their finger on what an ever-expanding array of vendors are actually delivering. No need to worry, as I don’t plan to spend this post pontificating on the liberal application of the term “cloud”–or even “cloud washing”

Software Demos and Evaluations: Five Successful Habits for Selecting a Cloud Provider

Since the introduction of client/server architecture in the early 1980s, enterprise computing has only become more complicated. Because of this, enterprise applications are incredibly hard to showcase during a software demonstration to a potential prospect or customer. With a constantly evolving product and large sales force, it becomes even more difficult to guarantee that your

The Cloud … Now With More IaaS

Late last week, Derrick Harris, of tech industry watcher GigaOm, blogged that both Google and Microsoft are readying new entrants to compete in the ongoing Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) cloud arms race. While Harris’ sources in Mountain View and Redmond have “declined to comment” on the particulars, it doesn’t require a wild imagination to

George Carlin Would Have Loved Hybrid Clouds

George Carlin’s bit on the importance of “stuff” is a comedy classic. As human beings, we have an innate need to acquire, hold, move, and find places to put our stuff. In our personal and professional lives, acquiring stuff can give us a sense of accomplishment, security, and control. Historically, acquiring stuff has been common practice

Information Week Cover Story: The Test Lab of Your Dreams

Information Week’s recent cover story talks about how and why more companies are opting to move their development testing labs from traditional in-house infrastructures to new cloud-based test labs. But beyond the glossy descriptions of compelling benefits, Information Week goes a layer deeper to the key question that I hear many enterprises asking: What are

Networking Perspectives: How It’s Done at Skytap

In the first part of this piece, Networking Perspectives: OpenStack v CloudStack, I discussed some of the primary differences between the network architectures of OpenStack and CloudStack. A key point was what we here at Skytap believe are the three core tenets of cloud networking: Clouds are inherently multi-tenant, and network definition and provisioning should

A Revolution in Virtual Training

In Part 1 of this two-part series, we’ll look at the challenges that face training professionals in today’s enterprise learning climate, and how the cloud is helping to overcome them. Can you take traditional training online and achieve the same learning outcomes? The challenges facing training organizations continue to grow. Companies need to provide software

Interop 2012 Notes: Zynga Moves from Public to Hybrid Cloud

One session in particular garnered a lot of attention at Interop 2012, Las Vegas. That session was Gaming the Hybrid Cloud: Lessons from Zynga’s zCloud given by Allan Leinwand, CTO at Zynga. TechTarget’s Alex Barrett summarized the session in her article: Why Zynga moved from public cloud to hybrid cloud. In it, she asked a

Are You Ready for Windows 8?

There’s no doubt that Microsoft is betting big on what they have rightfully called a “reimagining” of the company’s flagship operation system. Windows 8 looks to offer a significant opportunity to deliver new user experiences, and I would suspect that you are probably wondering how your business will best prepare itself for what this latest

Networking Perspectives: OpenStack v CloudStack

In early April, OpenStack released the Essex version of its stack software. Citrix, two days prior, announced their release of the CloudStack project under the Apache2 license, creating a genuinely competitive market for open-sourced stack software. We here at Skytap are excited to see this, since it represents a growing maturity and adoption of cloud

Dev and Ops: Night and Day. Science and Art. 1s and 0s.

For years now, software development teams and operations/system administrators have maintained this kind of yin and yang duality, pushing each other in opposing yet complementary directions. We’re all familiar with the dynamic of the IT department. Typically, the development team’s raison d’être is to deliver new features to end users. Meanwhile, operations/system administrators focus on

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