How SkyPlug Works
SkyPlug solves a problem we face as we rely more heavily on cloud infrastructure: realizing the economic promise. The elastic flexibility of cloud services like Microsoft Azure should mean savings as we "pay only for what we use". But the reality is using more than we need, because those virtual machines that are needed 9 hours a day end up online (and accruing charges) 24/7.
SkyPlug + Microsoft Azure = Easy
SkyPlug connects to your Azure subscriptions using a few point-and-click steps in minutes. Once complete, any virtual machine can be scheduled for a start or power-off job, set and forget.
We leverage secure certificate authentication to obtain the minimal access needed for the service. Everything is Azure-native, including access control and auditing, ensuring fit with existing tools and processes.
By connecting multiple subscriptions simultaneously, power users and service providers can manage distributed subscription resources in a single view.
Virtual Machine Discovery
Once your subscriptions are connected, you're ready to add virtual machines for scheduling. Simply click "Import" to display a list of VMs that SkyPlug can manage.
Add or remove virtual machines from SkyPlug at any time. Only those VMs that are added to SkyPlug are potentially subject to power actions.
Intelligent Scheduling
Now that virtual machines are added, create scheduled jobs to start and stop/deallocate during business hours or any other schedule.
SkyPlug allows a variety of schedule types and is designed to accomodate both simple and advanced scheduling with a few clicks. Once a set of virtual machines are scheduled, the power actions are performed automatically and reliably.
Example schedules:
- 🕑 One-time: Friday May 1 2023 at 10:00
- 🕑 Daily: Every day at 10:00
- 🕑 Day of week: Saturdays at 06:00
- 🕑 Day of month: Every second Tuesday
- 🕑 Interval: every 30 minutes or 3 hours
Timely, Targeted Notifications
SkyPlug keeps you in the loop to ensure you know the status of your resources and have no suprises in your bill at the end of the month.
Each schedule can have a unique email recipient list so you can target information to the right people.
Uncompromising Security
Your cloud resources are valuable and we treat them as such. SkyPlug has been designed from the ground up to provide modern security for today's environment. This includes:
- 🔒 No plaintext credentials, ever
- 🔒 Certificate authentication: private keys are never exposed
- 🔒 Modern stack: implemented in latest .NET version
- 🔒 Minimal dependencies: only vetted, trusted sources for third-party functionality
- 🔒 Encryption everywhere: in transit, at rest
- 🔒 Role-based access control: ensure your team is privileged appropriately
- 🔒 Comprehensive auditing: review which actions are performed by which users
- 🔒 World-class infrastructure: SkyPlug runs in Azure datacenters, benefiting from Microsoft's documented security practices