Written by: Lynn Cadet
Edited by: Lillian Castro
TL; DR: Skytap helps make moving to the cloud simple and quick for enterprises and their legacy systems. Migrating data and specialized workloads can be challenging because they must fit the cloud’s architecture. Skytap eliminates the need to rewrite applications and integrates existing traditional applications with those built for the cloud so they can run as is on the public cloud. We spoke with Rahul Tripathi, Chief Product and Technology Officer of Skytap, about the SaaS platform, the unparalleled benefits of the cloud, and Skytap’s connected community.
Migrating to the cloud presents a whole new world of possibilities for companies. The cloud’s scalable and flexible nature allows businesses to efficiently consume resources, create innovative applications, and build for the future. Companies are taking advantage of it. According to Zippia, 94% of enterprises use cloud services, while 67% of enterprise infrastructure has now become cloud-based.
Coca-Cola is one of many enterprises that have made the move. It adopted the cloud to enhance its IT infrastructure and streamline global operations. After migrating its workloads to AWS, Coca-Cola saved 40% in operating costs and reduced IT help desk tickets by 80% with added automation.
Cloud infrastructure provides valuable benefits, but migrating to it can pose a significant barrier for companies. Cloud migration requires repurposing and adjusting. And it can be hard to do it alone. Fortunately, Skytap is here for the assist. Skytap helps enterprises migrate their specialized workloads and legacy IT solutions to the cloud and achieve cloud benefits, beyond the lift and shift.
“Many managed service providers only lift and shift. We take people closer to the cloud. We bring these legacy workloads to the cloud first. And then we bring the cloud to these legacy workloads,” said Rahul Tripathi, Chief Product and Technology Officer of Skytap.
Skytap allows businesses to move mission-critical applications such as ones running on IBM Power/RISC architectures from their on-premises data centers without refactoring or rewriting their apps. This way, companies can harness the power of the cloud while avoiding the costly measures to get there. Skytap handles the hard work, so teams don’t have to.
Bringing Companies Closer to Cloud
Many companies want to migrate to the cloud but often don’t know the best path forward. Cloud migration is a tricky endeavor that requires shaking up the foundation a business stands on — its infrastructure. Skytap takes on this daunting undertaking and removes uncertainty for customers.
“We offer the same value proposition of running on-prem. So you can run the same application without making a change. We help customers run as is but provide the cloud value,” said Rahul.
Skytap’s mission is to help businesses move and natively run their legacy systems in the public cloud with minimal change and effort. And the Skytap team makes this migration fast, easy, and secure. One of the primary concerns with cloud migration is application compatibility. Skytap eliminates those concerns.
“It’s not just about bringing the workload to the cloud. The value only accrues to the customer and us when we have also brought the cloud to the workload without a massive forklift change to the application,” said Rahul.
Skytap’s SaaS-based platform saves companies time and money by eliminating the expense of rewriting applications to fit the cloud’s architecture. Skytap integrates existing workflows with those built for the cloud and replicates entire data centers in hours. Companies can run their existing workloads immediately and add new cloud capabilities.
Besides legacy applications, Skytap also runs virtualized x86 based workloads in public clouds. “You can spin up hundreds of instances of your environment. Skytap Labs on demand also allows virtual IT infrastructure to simulate environments and provide them to their trainers and customers, and even do some of their own testing,” said Rahul.
Leverage the Capabilities of Cloud Resources
Skytap empowers businesses to leverage the capabilities of the cloud on their own terms. Its platform offers capacity on demand, self-service provisioning, and high availability year-round. Companies with IBM Power and x86 applications can run their applications as is.
“We are a multicloud company. Our customers can run in Microsoft Azure, and that is where we see a lot of traction because many new applications are growing there. We also operate in the IBM Cloud, the idea being that it’s customers’ choice of the target cloud vendor they want,” said Rahul.
Skytap provides companies with a smart and efficient way to invest their money in the cloud and upgrade their applications with its capabilities. This way, companies can optimize their infrastructure, scale faster, and leverage new technologies, such as AI, with cloud resources.
“We are providing that middleware to customers to bring their data to the data lakes and generative AI capabilities of the public cloud, thereby driving enormous business value minus the complexity,” said Rahul.
Skytap helps customers move their data closer to the cloud without hassle. It also reduces the burden of expenditures. Its multitenant architecture offers users a better cost structure than traditional CapEx-based buying models, enabling users to buy only what they need.
“You can scale and grow as you need. Then you can leverage all the other cloud services that are there in the cloud along with our service. So you can reach out to better cybersecurity services or data analytic services. We can provide that,” said Rahul.
A Connected Community of Customers
Being a SaaS company has allowed Skytap to remain connected to its customers throughout their journey. Skytap doesn’t sell software and disappear but provides support and engages with customers. Its platform includes telemetry and tools to help companies provide feedback and communicate with the Skytap team.
“We are real partners to our customers. We try to solve their problems, even if we don’t have all the answers they want. So we have a strong affinity with our customers. We understand their business, they understand ours, and we work with them,” said Rahul.
Skytap also brings its customers together through live events to share new features, encourage discourse, and receive feedback on its solutions. The Skytap team wants to ensure customers get the best experience that will enable them to improve their legacy applications and leverage the most out of cloud resources and capabilities.
“We consult with our customers to make sure they are looking at our platform as an opportunity to improve what they have. We cannot just sell and leave. And we win our customers business every day. Our net retention rates are high, over 100%. Customer satisfaction is good. So we are happy with that,” said Rahul.
