Cloudcast

Skytap’s Wild West Show, Episode 1: ‘Where’s the Sheriff?’

May 4th, 2009 Posted in Cloud Computing, Skytap | No Comments »

There have been some comments from Gartner and others about ‘on-demand overspending’ and lack of control in the cloud. Here at Skytap, we’re determined to tame the Wild West nature of cloud computing, including unexpected billing surprises at the end of the month. Check out our tongue-in-cheek video to see what we mean…

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Skytap Named To the First Annual InformationWeek Startup 50

April 23rd, 2009 Posted in Virtual Lab Automation and Management | No Comments »

Skytap has been named to the first annual listing of the InformationWeek Startup 50, revealed in the April 20th edition of InformationWeek Magazine and on InformationWeek.com. Skytap was one of only a handful of cloud computing vendors named to this prestigious list. Check out the full press release here. The InformationWeek Startup 50 can be [...]

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VMware vSphere: Are External Clouds Just for On-Demand Capacity?

April 21st, 2009 Posted in Cloud Computing | No Comments »

VMware launched a new release of its virtual infrastructure platform today under the ‘vSphere’ brand. VMware encouraged customers to virtualize their IT infrastructure within ‘private clouds’ and automate provisioning and management to lower costs and increase business agility.
This is a continuation of VMware’s  vCloud initiative which is designed to enable service providers (such as Skytap) [...]

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Our View on the Open Cloud Manifesto

March 30th, 2009 Posted in Cloud Computing, Uncategorized | No Comments »

The Open Cloud Manifesto was released today to a flurry of comment and criticism from the media, including GigaOm, eWeek, ZDnet, and others. This comes after last week’s post from Microsoft, complaining about the closed nature of the manifesto’s development. Although few can argue with any of the broad principles in the document (including us), [...]

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Skytap Receives $7 Million Series B Round of Funding

March 16th, 2009 Posted in News, Skytap | No Comments »

Skytap, Inc., the leading provider of cloud-based virtual lab solutions, today announced it completed a $7 million Series B round of funding from Ignition Partners, Madrona Venture Group and Washington Research Foundation. The funds will be used to bolster the company’s product development, sales and marketing efforts.
See the full press release here.

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CloudCamp Brings Together Seattle’s Cloud Innovators

March 3rd, 2009 Posted in Cloud Computing, Events | No Comments »

We attended CloudCamp Seattle on Saturday and participated in the first CloudCamp unconference to visit the emerald city.
Seattle is home to an impressive list of cloud computing companies (Amazon, Microsoft, and Google’s seattle campus), as well as a growing list of emerging startups (Decho, Skytap, and a plethora of SaaS companies). This makes Seattle a [...]

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Recasting Virtualization Initiatives as Cloud Initiatives

February 18th, 2009 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

According to Forrester and Gartner, consolidating servers through virtualization can result in up to 50% savings on hardware costs¹ and a 15-20% reduction in total cost of ownership² once a project is complete and project costs have been included. I’d wager most IT managers would agree that virtualization has been a cost saving strategy for [...]

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Better Software with Crowdsourcing and Cloud Computing

February 10th, 2009 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Crowdsourcing and cloud computing are two exciting trends in the tech industry. We’ve teamed up with our friends at uTest to show how you can combine online communities and cloud-based infrastructure to build better software.  Join our 30 minute live Webcast tomorrow to learn:
• How crowdsourcing and cloud computing can be used together to improve the [...]

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Focus on ‘right-sized, zero-CAPEX alternatives’

February 10th, 2009 Posted in Cloud Computing | No Comments »

Phil Wainewright recently wrote an article in ZDNet that referenced IDC’s forecast that SaaS growth will surge by more than 40 percent in the current year. He highlighted one particularly interesting statement:
“… the harsh economic climate will actually accelerate the growth prospects for the software as a service (SaaS) model as vendors position offerings as [...]

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Gartner Says Cloud Application Infrastructure Technologies Need Seven Years to Mature

February 4th, 2009 Posted in Cloud Computing | No Comments »

Gartner issued a press release predicting the 3 phases of evolution for cloud computing. In the first phase, pioneers and trailblazers, Gartner predicts successful vendors will focus on rapid-application-development-oriented tools and solutions where return on investment can be acquired within 18 to 24 months.
We agree that successful cloud providers will need to prove their value [...]

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