Serena Software Taps Skytap Cloud to Power Dynamic Workloads for Globally Distributed Teams
Skytap, Inc., the leading provider of self-service cloud automation solutions, today announced that Serena Software, the leader in orchestrated IT management solutions, is using Skytap Cloud to run dynamic workloads in the cloud — including its Agile software development and testing initiatives across 13 countries.
The Silicon Valley-based software provider has transitioned its most dynamic workloads into Skytap Cloud, providing its IT department with a powerful solution that enables self-service for hundreds of users across multiple business units within the organization, including teams collaborating across the United States, Ukraine, and United Kingdom. As a result, Serena has shortened its software test and development cycles, streamlined its internal and external training processes, and increased the quality of its next generation software products.
Prior to adopting Skytap Cloud, Serena was limited by the constraints of its existing on-premise infrastructure. Tasks such as provisioning machines, setting up test environments and configuring instances required several man-hours to complete and created potential bottlenecks. Serena also needed to create specific software versions to perform proof of concepts for different customers, requiring time-consuming builds that were not easily duplicated on user machines. Additionally, Serena Software was challenged with providing significant computing and storage capacity so the company could transition the delivery of its software from individual applications to bundled suites, which were significantly larger in size.
“We initially used Skytap Cloud for our research and development teams, but quickly found that the solution had other applications outside of our software development and test organization,” said Ken Sims, senior systems administrator at Serena Software. “By using Skytap Cloud across the business, we significantly reduced our go-to-market timeline and can now demonstrate our products directly through Skytap Cloud to shorten sales cycles.”
Skytap Cloud is purpose-built for distributed teams that frequently collaborate on dynamic workloads and complex computing environments. By using the self-service functionality of Skytap, Serena was able to dramatically reduce provisioning times for complex environments, removing potential bottlenecks and accelerating workflow. Serena’s Agile development and testing cycles were accelerated by using a standard “golden template,” which allows users to easily replicate and share these environments across distributed teams. When the company began to integrate its software solutions into complete suites, Skytap empowered Serena with the ability to scale its computing and storage capacity as much as five times on a short lead time, or on-demand basis. This greatly improved IT’s responsiveness and agility to respond to the changing needs of their internal customers. Currently, Serena Software has nearly 300 Skytap users across 13 countries, and together they have created over 1,000 complex computing environments for testing and development.
What initially started as a research and development project for Serena, quickly evolved into a company-wide implementation of Skytap Cloud. After experiencing the many benefits of Skytap Cloud, Serena’s IT department implemented the solution for software demonstrations and customer enablement scenarios. Using Skytap, field sales engineers are able to spin up complete computing environments where they can run interactive application demonstrations for prospective and existing customers. The IT team has also implemented Skytap for customer support, allowing the company to quickly reproduce a customer environment to debug software, collaborate directly with customers within a shared environment, or provide consulting services directly within Skytap Cloud.
Skytap’s flexibility is also showcased through Serena’s training program. Training managers utilize Skytap to administer last-minute, large-scale training sessions, taking advantage of Skytap’s ability to quickly provision virtual classroom environments. Based on its experiences, Serena is evaluating moving its entire training program to Skytap Cloud to cut the cost and time needed to set up classroom environments.
“As a truly global company, Serena Software required a highly flexible and collaborative cloud solution to develop and test its software, and configure training classes for internal and external use,” said Brett Goodwin, vice president of marketing and business development at Skytap. “With Skytap Cloud, Serena benefits from a powerful solution that can help improve responsiveness to a variety of user needs across a diverse set of business units. Serena can now cost-effectively match its computing capacity with its dynamic workload needs, and scale resources to support complex computing environments around the globe.”
About Skytap, Inc.
Skytap is the leading provider of self-service cloud automation solutions for dynamic workloads. Skytap Cloud gives businesses a fast, easy, and secure way to create complex computing environments in the cloud. Customers can run enterprise applications unchanged in the cloud, collaborate securely with global teams, and gain unparalleled business productivity. Additionally, IT organizations maintain full visibility and control over cloud projects, align capacity with demand, and reduce costs. Enterprises can securely connect Skytap Cloud to their data centers and create hybrid clouds. Skytap is ideal for any dynamic workload including development and testing, software demos and evaluations, and virtual training. To try Skytap Cloud and learn more, visit www.skytap.com.