Virgin Media O2 is one of Europe’s biggest telecommunications service providers, combining a fibre-rich broadband network with the UK’s largest and most reliable mobile provider. It was the first to offer free Wi-Fi to the public via popular locations such as Sainsburys stores and McDonald’s restaurants. However, rapid growth created challenges for their existing database which they resolved by moving to SkySQL database-as-a-service.
Challenges: As Virgin Media O2 experienced rapid growth, they faced several critical challenges with their existing database infrastructure:
- In-house maintenance: Having to perform continuous updates and software patches, even with a large team, created risk to the Wi-Fi service.
- Limited Database Support: Their database support was stretched during out-of-business hours, leading to heightened risks for SLAs with their customers
- Scalability constraints: The potential for scaling their existing database was limited
- Rising Costs: The increasing burden of both database administration and hardware maintenance charges were leading to rising costs
- Performance: Lack of expertise in-house was causing a drop-off in the database performance required
Solution: To address these challenges, Virgin Media O2 decided to migrate to a managed cloud database service, selecting SkySQL.
🙶 SkySQL brought a new dimension into our organisation. The night we migrated, we saw an immediate speed improvement, better real time statistics and since then peace of mind knowing our data is under control. If you’re comparing cloud databases, I would recommend SkySQL, no question. 🙷
Paul Greaves, Head of Automation and Orchestration, Infrastructure Cloud Engineering and Delivery, Virgin Media UK Limited
With any database interruption resulting in millions of users losing Wi-Fi access at major customers such as McDonald’s and Sainsburys and invalidating SLAs, Virgin Media O2 needed reliability and scalability. By also adopting SkySQL’s SkyDBA service they now benefit from round-the-clock expertise and support.
“Moving to a managed cloud database service ticked all the boxes,” says Paul Greaves, Head of Automation and Orchestration, Infrastructure Cloud Engineering and Delivery, Virgin Media UK Limited: “SkySQL achieved it and smashed it. We don’t need to worry about it. We could have chosen a MySQL instance from one of the public clouds, but I felt the insights and especially the personal touch made the difference.”
SkySQL provides resilience, security and performance by default and includes features that other cloud databases charge extra for such as Enterprise grade high availability, failover, backup, monitoring autonomous scalability.
SkySQL provided a comprehensive solution that included:
- Resilience, Security, and Performance: SkySQL offers enterprise-grade continuous availability, failover, backup, monitoring, and autonomous scalability by default. Features that most other cloud database providers charge extra for.
- Expert Support and Management: SkyDBA provided expert support, with proactive monitoring, ensuring optimal performance and management.
- User Interface and Monitoring: Advanced UI and dashboard features with integrated observability allowed for seamless monitoring and management of the database.
“SkySQL opens up new opportunities for us to iterate faster and provide a better experience for our customers,” Greaves explains. “We now have a 24×7 platform that’s more efficient, faster and cheaper. Cost was the last thing we looked at, but we’re happy to see the savings. Both OpEx and CapEx were massively reduced by moving everything we did from on-prem into SkySQL, and that savings will continue, on an ongoing basis. We can now always work within our budget and scale as we go”.
The availability of 24×7 expert support via the SkySQL SkyDBA team was a critical factor in Virgin Media O2’s decision: “As soon as we migrated, we got full support around the clock from SkySQL’s own engineers and certified database administrators,” Greaves says. “It’s a weight off my shoulders. You get to speak to humans and it’s as though they’re colleagues of mine.”
With a SkySQL support plan and the complementary SkyDBA service, O2 Wifi was able to confidently migrate all of its mission-critical databases to the cloud, and can now rest easy knowing that expert support is ready and waiting, 24×7.
Results: Virgin Media O2 reaped several benefits from transitioning to SkySQL:
- Enhanced Performance: The platform became more efficient, faster, and capable of handling increased demand.
- Cost Savings: Both operational expenses (OpEx) and capital expenses (CapEx) were significantly reduced, providing ongoing savings and allowing Virgin Media O2 to stay within budget while scaling operations.
- Improved Customer Experience: The 24×7 platform enabled Virgin Media O2 to iterate faster and provide a superior experience to their customers.
- Clear visibility via monitoring and reporting: With SkySQL’s built-in monitoring dashboard, Greaves says, “We instantly got visibility into what our platform was doing and how it was performing. As soon as we migrated, all of the failed connections we’d experienced previously disappeared, and every single connection stayed up consistently. Even better, we saw the connections. We could see the transactions; we could see the latency – which dropped from 7ms before to 1ms with SkySQL – in the monitoring dashboards that you get out of the box with SkySQL.”“Now we can make informed business decisions because we can easily see and understand what is happening,” continues Greaves. “Within two hours of migrating to SkySQL, we began to see immediate improvements we could make within our applications to have them perform at their peak.”
Virgin Media O2
Virgin Media O2, one of Europe’s largest telecommunications services providers, combines a fibre-rich broadband network offering the fastest widely-available broadband speeds with the UK’s largest and most reliable mobile provider. It’s a customer-first organisation with a clear and simple mission: upgrading the UK.
Virgin Media O2 has 49 million UK connections across broadband, mobile, TV and home phone while Its fixed network currently passes 16.1 million premises – all with access to Gigabit speeds and the fastest, guaranteed WiFi. This sits alongside a mobile network that covers 99% of the nation’s population with 4G, and more than 600 towns and cities with 5G services.
SkySQL Inc
SkySQL, the ultimate cloud database service for the MySQL/MariaDB ecosystem, redefines data management by automating deployment, scaling, and administration. This cutting-edge platform frees up resources, letting you focus on strategic initiatives. With SkySQL, operational complexities are streamlined, unlocking the full potential of your data without compromising efficiency.
At the heart of SkySQL is its ability to seamlessly adapt to changing demands, providing a robust foundation for applications. The platform’s user-friendly interface and comprehensive features make it accessible to both experts and newcomers to the cloud environment. Experience a new era of efficient and innovative database management with SkySQL, propelling your business forward.
