Zeus streamlines comms for Newport City Council.

M2 PRESSWIRE-24 August 2005-ZEUS TECHNOLOGY: Zeus streamlines comms for Newport City Council(C)1994-2005 M2 COMMUNICATIONS LTD

RDATE:24082005

Newport City Council has successfully deployed Zeus Technology software as part of its drive to comply with Welsh Assembly Government e-initiatives to make services more accessible, responsive and cost effective through the use of ICT.

Zeus Extensible Traffic Manager (ZXTM) has significantly streamlined business processes for the Council's main website, intranet and web based content management system, providing visitors and staff with quick and easy access to information they need from a wealth of data available.

ZXTM has saved the Council time and money by standardising paths for all online documents. Seamless migration of over 24,000 documents to its new content management system would have been a labour intensive task had it not been for ZXTM's intelligent scripting language, TrafficScript. Three lines of code enabled the web development team to dynamically rewrite requests that map seamlessly into the new path name in a matter of hours as opposed to months - delivering a significant return on investment.

Mark Neilson, Infrastructure Manager at Newport City Council said, "ZXTM fitted effortlessly into our web infrastructure and we are already seeing the benefits. One key advantage is the Graphic User Interface (GUI), a simple colour-coded screen that provides instant visibility of any problems. It is hoped that ZXTM will eventually enable Newport City Council to provide staff with transparent access to public and restricted information from one website."

ZXTM intelligently manages traffic from external visitors to the website routing requests to the appropriate server using sophisticated TrafficScript rules. By automatically re-routing requests to different servers, ZXTM provides faster responses and ensures end users are never faced with unhelpful error messages.

The Zeus solution also manages the Council's internal traffic to the intranet. Adding value to the existing content management system, ZXTM provides a gateway for internal staff to access a wider range of documents than was previously possible. This allows contact centre staff to respond to residents' queries efficiently and effectively, by accessing up-to-date and relevant information at the touch of a button.

Steve Palmer, VP of marketing for Zeus Technology said, "The government is pushing Councils to deliver services electronically, with information accessible 24 x 7. The wide range of services covered by Councils means web infrastructures need to intelligently manage large amounts of traffic in a secure environment and optimise applications so the right information can be accessed quickly. ZXTM has helped deliver real business benefits to Newport City Council through improved operations, lowered costs and enhanced user experience."

ZXTM uniquely combines three core areas of functionality; traffic management, security and application optimisation, in a single scaleable solution run from a single user interface. This not only reduces the costs and difficulty of running three separate pieces of software, but also allows rapid fault isolation by providing real time reporting and historical performance trends.

About Zeus Technology

Zeus Technology is leading the development of innovative application traffic management software. Since 1996, its award-winning solutions have enabled organisations to harness the power of the internet, dramatically improving operations to provide a seamless experience for end-users. Millions of internet services across the globe rely on Zeus infrastructure products for reliability, scalability and security. Reshaping the market with its intelligent approach to Application Infrastructure Management ZeusAIM manages the three essential requirements of traffic management, optimisation and security as a whole. Its flagship product - Zeus Extensible Traffic management (ZXTM) - integrates these functions in a single, scaleable solution. Zeus partners include HP, IBM, Sun Microsystems, Dell, Intel, AMD and Qualcomm. Its customers include eBay, BT, Cable and Wireless, Yahoo, NTT Docomo, AT & T, Qualcomm, NEC Biglobe,Virgin Holidays, Wells Fargo and Play.com. For more information, go towww.zeus.com .

About Newport City Council

Newport City Council is a unitary authority formed in 1996, and is the 8th largest in Wales, providing all major services such as education, leisure, housing, social services, planning and highways.The council employs approximately 7,500 people and has an annual revenue budget of around GBP290 million.

As part of an authority wide project to transform access to services, Newport City Council identified the need to improve its web infrastructure in terms of performance and resilience. It has also striven to increase the amount of information provided via its web site for example by including information on planning services. It has also increased its transactional capabilities by providing online bookings for its new "Riverfront" theatre and arts complex.

CONTACT: Becky Lamont/Denise Thompson/Kim Bithel, Ware Anthony RustTel: +44 (0)1223 566212e-mail: becky.lamont@war.uk.come-mail: denise.thompson@war.uk.come-mail: kim.bithel@war.uk.com

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