Sky enjoys bright outlook with platform for innovation

“The Server Labs is a trusted partner to Sky, providing the tools we need, the sklls… and the fun stuff”, says Ricvinder Chana, Sky Senior Test & Trial Manager.

“They work with us on an Agile and collaborative basis to deliver across trials, Jira for project tracking and TestRail for software testing. That helps us deliver new and exciting products and services for customers.

We’ve been working together for over 10 years, and that longevity of relationship is an indicator that things are going well...”

There are other advantages too.

“TSL has helped us build a custom and bespoke environment: it’s not just an off-the-shelf thing, ”Chana adds. “We can scale up and down easily and the economic value is excellent.”

Examples of Sky innovation include Sky Glass, the company’s ‘smarter TV for everyone’ that integrates hardware with streaming entertainment subscription services without the need for a satellite dish. Now in its second generation, Glass has become one of the best-selling TVs in the UK and provides a superior consumer experience with a cable-free environment and simpler host administration.

But it’s not just Glass…

TSL also works with Sky on a range of technology-enabled services and offers, including home insurance, mobile comms, broadband and business packages.

“Glass always gets the fanfare but there’s a lot of other work we’re doing,” says Chana. “The last 10 years have been crazy. The pandemic was a massive upheaval and we’ve had busy periods with projects such as deploying mobile networks in Ireland, the CityFibre relationship for full-fibre networks, Glass Gen 2 and Sky Protect home insurance. None of that would have been possible without TSL’s support. The Server Lab has always shown a clear understanding of our business and has demonstrated that it is capable of flexing to our demands. One of the greatest things is how we’ve learned to work together seamlessly. Who knows where the next 10 years will take us…”

Chana particularly values the way that TSL can fill in for Sky, bringing its expertise to areas where it’s needed. “The relationship has always been collaborative,” he says. “If you think about cybersecurity today, for example, it’s completely different from five or 10 years ago… even a week ago.

We’ve seen new threats and regulations such as GDPR and data protection laws. Our team doesn't have great cyber or scalability experience so working with TSL is great. We can tap into their expertise and knowledge. One of the greatest things The Server Lab has shown it can do is take away headaches and fill in for what we need today and what we may need in the future.”

Going forward,Chana is keen to continue the rich history of cooperation.

“It’s a bit of a hybrid approach every year,” he says. “We look at how the previous year has gone, examining things like demand on apps. Then we look at the future: what does the next year look like? And we sit down with our counterparts at TheServerLab to look at how good and well-suited all our apps and projects are.

“There are always curve balls and we have to do things like periodically enhance apps with security and compliance. With Glass, we had to ramp up fast because our user base doubled in a year. The key thing for us is their understanding of how we use tools and apps and why, without us having to do any crazy calculations. They can build us our infrastructure and it’s not under- or over-engineered.

“We have alot of work to do with Openreach decommissioning PSTN, and we know The Server Labs can help us with what is a massive piece of work.”

“It’s always been a trusting relationship but we’ve evolved and The Server Labs can predict what we may want and need,”says Chana. That's important, and that ability to be a good mind-reader has really helped us.

“There are three three things I love about working with The Server Labs. First is the great relationship we have. The ServerLab has great expertise and it builds things that are fit for purpose and based on our requirements. It’s easy to over-engineer and oversell things and get things you don’t need but the way The Server Labs works means we get great efficiencies.

“Second, they take away a lot of the technical headache.They can spin up a proposal in record time and tailor it for us.

“Number three, this all means we can focus on project delivery and delivering things for Sky. When the pandemic hit, we had a backlog of about 15 projects and two or three major programmes. We had to scale very, very quickly across TV, broadband, mobile and insurance. There was a five-fold surge in demand.

Kudos to The Server Labs and AWS for being able to handle increased demand at short notice.”