Skytap, Inc., the leading provider of on-demand Environments-as-a-Service (EaaS), today announced the Skytap Mobile Admin App for iOS, which puts the power of Skytap in the hands of IT leaders whether they are in the office or on the go. From a smartphone, Skytap administrators can now manage their team’s usage of cloud-based dev/test, training and demo environments, to increase efficiency and control cloud resource costs.

The consumerization of IT has led the next generation of IT leaders to expect the same technology tools and ease of use in the workplace that they’ve become accustomed to in their daily lives. A recent IDG study found that 83 percent of enterprise organizations are planning to invest in mobile technology over the next year to make the most of this shift. Skytap’s new mobile app delivers on this promise and initial feedback has been positive.

“I have been using a pre-release version of this app for a few months and it has been solid. I use it for managing many aspects of our Skytap cloud, including firing up the systems that I need while on the bus on my way to work. It is often the first tool I reach for when someone needs help with a system residing in Skytap; usually it is the only tool I need!” said Bill Wellington, networks and systems administrator for DevOps at Fulcrum Technologies. “If you administer Skytap resources for your company this is a must have tool.”

Skytap’s mobile app provides administrator-level Skytap users with smartphone access to several core capabilities, including:

Real-Time Management of Environments
Admin users can view the status of their environments and leverage a lineup of features for the real-time management of their Skytap resources. Through a user-friendly mobile dashboard, users can:

  • Save costs by monitoring environment run states and shut them down when they aren’t in use
  • Create new environments from the Skytap template library
  • Add new environments to existing projects or change environment ownership
  • Copy environments to different regions via Skytap’s Copy to Region functionality

Quota Management
Skytap’s mobile app provides IT administrators and operations teams with access to their visibility and control tools, enabling them to manage virtual machine and storage usage. Instant alerts prompt administrators to monitor usage and adjust limits as needed 24 hours a day, ensuring that systems are not left idle and driving up costs.

Administrative Features
The app also provides quick access to commonly employed admin functions, including the ability to:

  • Filter and assign environments by project
  • Access integrated support options
  • Open the application direct from notification emails
  • View VM desktop screens and thumbnails on the phone

“With the Skytap mobile app we’ve accomplished our vision of providing admins with a user-friendly app that’s similar to the ones they use in their everyday lives — complete with all the essentials,” said Brian White, vice president of products at Skytap. “The mobile app represents yet another milestone in our quest to drive innovation in the cloud. We’ll continue to evolve our mobile offering to meet customer needs and are on track to release the app on the Android platform in the coming months.”

The Skytap mobile app is free to download and install, and uses a customer’s current Skytap administrator-level login to sync to environments. An Android version of the app, currently in beta, will be available on the Android Store in April 2015. The iOS version of the app can be downloaded at: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/skytap-admin/id960310195?ls=1&mt=8/.