Skyview Networks bolsters its mission-critical IT infrastructure to win broadcast deals and drive real results

Major audio technology and network sales company enhances reliability and performance with HPE 3PAR and HPE Synergy

Founded in 1995, Skyview Networks initially focused on satellite distribution for professional sports, but has evolved into one of the largest audio distribution and inventory management providers in North America. It provides best-in-class services that include satellite distribution, full network automation, inventory management systems and network audio sales.

Skyview Networks offers automated products for the audio broadcast industry that improve efficiency and performance, including AdView Inventory Management and Live Read Capture. This system creates a streamlined process from on-air advertiser scheduling to affidavit generation, and allows live reads to be fully managed like a standard commercial unit. This technology allows the sales side of Skyview Networks to deliver on compelling, creative advertising campaigns for clients across its network portfolio, which includes ABC Radio, CBS Audio, Alpha Media and more.

Given Skyview Networks’ emphasis on delivering quality services to its customers, the company leveraged HPE 3PAR to provide clients with the highest class of service level agreements (SLA).

“The primary criteria necessary for the acquisition and deployment of our mission-critical IT infrastructure is capability, followed by cost,” recalls Christopher Horvat, Skyview Networks’ VP of Information Technology. “We look for systems that deliver high uptime SLAs, support failover capabilities and are cost efficient. We continue to use HPE technology because it checks all of those boxes.”

Skyview Networks supports a variety of workloads for a wide breadth of clients, including traditional core infrastructure virtual machines (VMs), database and webservers, and a core group of VMs that transcode audio in real-time and automate the broadcast of national networks and sports properties. On any given day, revenues delivered by Skyview Networks systems exceed one million dollars and are largely driven by more than 100 applications and systems working together to get its clients’ broadcasts and advertisers on the air.

Along with enhancing redundancy capabilities, Skyview Networks sought to ramp up its virtualization initiatives by better integrating itself into the digital world. With HPE 3PAR and HPE Synergy, Skyview Networks can virtualize its audio in digital format without the traditional analog-to-digital latency and single physical backplane connection. These enhancements ultimately limit downtime and increase efficiency of resources.

“Only HPE 3PAR had built in redundancy, remote copy and automated failover capabilities similar to our original deployment. Other vendors had complicated processes or required additional components to deliver the same capabilities,” says Horvat.

Skyview Networks knew managing a high volume of data could get complicated and was also looking for a solution that could simplify compute capabilities. With HPE Synergy, a software-defined solution, Skyview Networks can compose any workload, reducing infrastructure cost and complexity. By leveraging one of the largest databases in the audio industry, Skyview Networks maintained sub-second response times on one million record queries. Since first deploying HPE Synergy and HPE 3PAR technology, Skyview Networks’ IOPS has increased from 1,000s to 10,000s which has allowed the speedy delivery of information to consumers.

Skyview Networks’ increasing momentum requires efficiency and control, so it can rapidly deploy IT resources for any workload, which now, in part, is accomplished through HPE OneView, a single management interface. With HPE Synergy, Skyview Networks can compose fluid pools of physical and virtual compute, storage, and fabric resources into any configuration for any application. This allows the company to condense compute capabilities at a rate and in a footprint smaller than competitors, delivering a true competitive advantage.

“Combined, HPE Synergy and 3PAR have created a formidable capability for us to deliver industry leading services on composable and reliable infrastructure with a few clicks. We can virtualize all our audio in digital format without the traditional analog-to-digital latency and without a single physical backplane connection. Using this technology has made our organization more agile in delivering premier services to our long list of clients,” says Horvat.

Skyview Networks’ revenue is earned through its commitment to super-serve its clients with best-in-class technology, unmatched reliability and custom-built solutions. The growth capacity HPE has provided Skyview Networks helps the company deliver on its promise and maintain its leadership in the audio industry.

“Our relationships with storied news brands are evidence that our partners trust us with their audio content knowing how well we manage and maintain our systems, as well as the multiple layers of redundancy provided by our primary and backup facilities and the HPE systems we have chosen to deploy,” says Horvat.

The company’s mission to be cutting-edge is enhanced by providers like HPE 3PAR and HPE Synergy, and the company’s strong growth is achieved year over year due to its prioritization of improving infrastructure and utilizing new technologies and software across all of its initiatives. HPE 3PAR has helped drive business success for the company by supporting a variety of  workloads, including traditional core infrastructure VMs, application servers and VMs that transcode audio in real-time. Additionally, with the introduction of the multi-layer redundant HPE 3PAR system, Skyview Networks achieved its goals of 100% availability in storage and sub 10 millisecond response times.

“HPE has had a big role in speeding up Skyview’s ability to schedule more unique commercial insertions, which occurs when part of a network feed is replaced with content unique to the local station or system. This has allowed Skyview to target specific listener segments at an unmatched industry level,” says Horvat.

Skyview Networks is the leading choice for audio networks and content creators, including its partnerships with ABC Radio and CBS Audio, because of its commitment to quality service and ability to deliver at a scale, speed and level that competitors cannot match. With the help of HPE technology, Skyview will continue to push the envelope in the audio space and bolster its status as an industry leader. 

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