We are making networking easy in Skytap Cloud – so easy that may be “cloudnetwork” jokes will become as fashionable as “lightbulb” jokes! All it takes is a couple of mouse clicks to create a realistic (meaning complex) application network topology.
What we are seeing is that this power and simplicity has freed users from having to approximate their application environment. Redundant network interfaces for failover, clustering, multi-tier topologies, policy-based routing and the like were all left out of the topology to live within the many limitations of traditional cloud networking. The result was the end-goal – whether that is application testing, building a proof-of-concept or other – was only partially achieved. Not any more. Our users are deploying sophisticated application architectures in the cloud with multiple subnets, multiple network interfaces, application delivery controllers, routers, WAN simulators etc. By accurately replicating their production environment or their customer’s deployment environment, users are able to emulate, test, or improve their environment in richer ways than before.
If performing all these tasks required the same degree of specialized IT support as in a physical data center, the business value would still be gated by IT’s bandwidth. By providing a default capability that automatically establishes all the network services, we are seeing functional users quickly achieving high productivity – without needing IT help. In many cases, IT performs the initial configuration according to their best practices and policies. But they do this once and clone these complex environments to replicate them when needed. The customer feedback we hear is that this is a win-win for both IT and the business in meeting IT policies and business goals amidst resource constraints.
