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Sky Poker Software, & "IT"
Tikay10
Member, Administrator, Moderator Posts: 173,618
Hi, There is a “Software Changes” Thread on the Forum, asking various questions, it also states numerous facts, many of which are incorrect, or based on wrong assumptions. So I thought I might set out a few things which may help everyone understand a little better how these things work.
Sky Poker is a business – and a very successful one – so it does not always reveal it’s future plans in too much detail, for obvious reasons, but there are some very good & valid points on the thread, so I agreed to reply to as many as possible, & do so by giving you some background, too. Only be seeing a fuller picture can some parts of a never ending, ever growing jigsaw seem to fit.
There is a whole bunch of stuff to address, so I’ll do it in parts, as follows.
Background
The iceberg……
Getting from A to B
Recent changes
Work-in-progress
If you could just bear with me whilst I Post it all, I'd be most grateful.
Thank you.
Comments
Background
Sky Poker had planned some time ago to develop a new Client, using a non-Flash alternative. The events of Black Friday were a bit of a wake up call, & most sites saw their traffic decline, but at Sky Poker, traffic has continued to grow very strongly. It was therefore decided late last year to develop a new non Flash-based site.
As this takes a little time, it was essential to continue to enhance & optimise the existing site in parallel, as we do not think it is an option to “freeze” development & improvement of the existing site for a 6 to 12 month period.
So, the existing site has continued to develop & evolve, parallel with development of the new site.
I’ll list the recent changes, those which are due in the near term, & the longer term changes in subsequent Posts.
Note there have been plenty of new things introduced, & that will continue, but the Tables themselves have not changed in a while. This was a conscious decision, based up on the new style Tables being developed as part of the new Client. A lot of stuff transfers across easily, but Sky Poker wanted the new Tables to be “just so”.
The iceberg.
90% of an iceberg is below the water, & invisible to most. The software architecture of a poker site is much the same. Lots of things happen which have no direct effect, or effects which are not immediately visible to players, but these things are essential, & are at the very heart of the site.
One or two people have mentioned that there have been scheduled, overnight outages almost every week for some time now, and they cannot see what has been changed, but much of these changes are to keep the site running smoothly, or( smoother!), to allow for the far greater capacity needed, & other essentials which a player would never see.
Extra servers have been added, but they do not just plonk another on the end, they share the site load equally, so have to be balanced every time additional ones are added.
Additional capacity has been built in recently, too, not always noticeable to players, but everything works better & quicker if the capacity threshold is not threatened.
Adam Harmer tries to attend every SPT, & he brings along his Laptop & demonstrates all the “work-in-progress” developments to those who are interested. He will be at Glasgow SPT this weekend, feel free to go see him & he will show you or demonstrate some of the stuff currently near to Release, or in Testing. Your feedback in these one-on-one sessions is welcomed.Disaster recovery – horrible words! – has been addressed, too. The entire internet is carried in underground, or even submarine, cables, which are owned & operated by unconnected (pardon the pun….) third parties, over which we have no control. From time to time, these fail, & diversionary procedures are in place for when this happens, as these third party outages can last for some time. Until quite recently, recovery from a major third party failure could take as long as 30 minutes, as the database needs to be reconfigured, security issues re-established, & everyone reconnected in a very short timeframe, which cause huge spikes in server loadings. Recent changes mean disaster recovery is almost instant – well inside one minute. Nobody knows when it will be needed, but they’ll soon know when they do…..
In addition, of course, week by week, but invisible to you, the new site is being constructed, & gradually moved to a test environment, & that also needs those brief, regular, scheduled outages which you will have noticed.
Note also that plenty of new stuff has already completed its development & testing, but is being held back for release at more opportune moments. As with so many things in life, little & often is good.
Getting from A to B.
The existing site will continue to be enhanced & optimised, with regular improvements, & parallel with that, the new site is rapidly coming together.
Balancing IT resource to ensure neither suffers is critical, & has been achieved.
Some issues will not be addressed in the existing, Flash-based, client, as they do not easily transfer across.
There has been comment by some players that they cannot run more than a few Tables due to ”lag” issues. There has been comment by some, too, that they can easily play 10, 15, 20 or more Tables on Sky Poker without lag.
How can anyone reconcile such extreme views? I certainly can’t, & I doubt anyone can.
The usual advice is that if you apply sound housekeeping to your Computer or Lappie then the problems disappear. I do not know any more than that – a few players have a problem with it, but most don’t.
The traffic figures suggest the problem is not widespread, or even remotely so. More players are spending more time on the site, the numbers demonstrate that beyond doubt. It is not a satisfactory situation if any one player is disadvantaged, though. There are so many variables on this, & much can happen between the Site, & the players computer, which is beyond the control of both.
We do know that Flash uses more CPU/Ram, but we also know that, all other things being equal, it is well within perfectly reasonable performance parameters, & is completely satisfactory for almost everyone. The aim is to get from “almost everyone” to “everyone”, though.
It will be interesting to see how things change when the new client arrives. Certainly it requires less resource, & has greater scope for the planned growth of site traffic.
Recent changes.
It was suggested that there have been no changes or enhancements recently. Leaving aside the substantial but “invisible” changes mentioned above, the following have been introduced in the last 2 to 3 months…..
December/January
Action Tables Deep Cash Tables Happy Hours Timed Tournaments New Lobby Filters Hand for Hand Table Messaging
Early February
New Poker Points structures
Play The Nation Minimum & default buy-in increases. Happy Hour Extension to all Tables
Late February
Capacity Upgraded. (Ongoing)
Future proofing the site
Near instant disaster recovery. (This is recovery from a total database crash or site “down”, not Tournament recovery).
March
Numerous performance improvements.
Viva Las Vegas
“Points Widget” introduced, & this has been released to limited group of players for final Beta-Testing. Excellent feedback so far - I'll be brave (or unwise enough...) to suggest you will love this piece of kit.
Various minor fixes of live issues.
Going forward, the near term schedule is as below, but as anyone with IT experience will readily know, ALL dates are subject to change.
Work-in-Progress
April
Connection Manager upgrade – future proofing Sky Poker and significant performance improvements across all gameplay.
Lobby Filter settings remembered.Community (Forum) upgrade. This has not reached Testing Stage yet, & may be pushed back to accommodate gameplay-based enhancements which have a greater priority.
Synchronised Breaks.Change of Betting Amounts in Cash & Tourneys to “total staked” as opposed to current method.
May
Late Registration for Tournaments
June/July
Complete table redesign to include…..
Resizable tables
Auto Top-Up
Tile/Auto Tile
Preferred Seating
There are plenty of other bells & whistles on that list, too, but currently, their release date, & or priority status, has not been finally agreed, so I have omitted them from the list for now.
That's it, I'm done.
Any questions, fire away, & either myself, or someone from Head Office, will try to respond if appropriate.
Thank you.
Thanks for the info.
Not a daft question at all, it was almost designed to tease!
It is a very clever little thing which......well you'll have to wait & see!
Anyone who is at Brighton & Glasgow SPT's this week will be able to see it.
For everyone else, well hopefully it will be fully released shortly, once we are 100% sure it is glitch-free & hunky dory.
Early indications are that it is working perfectly, exactly as designed, & so it should be up very soon.
In order....
1) Yes.
2) Yes. (Though, as with anything "IT", dates may move).
I will be offline for an hour or so, but will pick up further questions & comments thereafter.
Thanks!
Are there any plans for Ipad / Mobile gaming platform for sky poker?
Keep up the good work Sky!