WildPackets Ensures Reliability of bet365's Online Gaming Services; OmniPeek® Provides Network Monitoring and Analysis to Prevent Outages for Online Gaming Company

Business Wire, Oct 31, 2005

WALNUT CREEK, Calif. -- WildPackets Inc., innovators in advanced network analysis, today announced that one of the world's largest online gaming companies, bet365 (www.bet365.com), has chosen the Omni distributed network analysis platform to help ensure maximum operating efficiency for its online gaming services. According to bet365, OmniPeek was selected for its ease of use, powerful functionality, and accessible user interface.

"With web-based services, we must make sure we are offering our customers the most secure and reliable online environment possible," said James Berriman, Infrastructure Engineer at bet365. "The complex infrastructure at our head office in Stoke and remote data centre in London makes monitoring the reliability of the different interfacing systems and networks a challenging task."

bet365 worked with Marquest, a WildPackets UK-based reseller, to evaluate the OmniPeek console and Omni DNX real-time data collection engine. Following this successful evaluation, bet365 deployed WildPackets across its entire operations. "We quickly found that OmniPeek provided us with a wealth of traffic and packet information not previously available," said Berriman. "With the addition of remote Omni DNX engines, we also gained an overall, in-depth view of systems, application and network performance."

Within days of installation, OmniPeek had helped bet365 to improve the performance of its head office network by identifying a significant amount of unnecessary traffic. "With a simple tweak to our switch configuration we were able to resolve this issue," said Berriman. "Our other monitoring tools were able to alert us to the high level of traffic, but it was OmniPeek that allowed us to identify the root cause."

Another area where OmniPeek has proved its worth is in helping bet365 to monitor its perimeter security. The company has deployed firewalls and intrusion prevention systems to secure itself from attack, but Omni has been useful in helping to double check that these systems are performing as expected. "With its powerful Expert Analysis feature, OmniPeek can notify us of unusual traffic patterns, to help ensure that any security problems are swiftly identified and resolved," said Berriman.

"WildPackets has provided us with very useful tools to help us deliver the best performance and reliability to our customers, making their online experience with bet365 one they will want to repeat," concluded Berriman.

Riaz Khan, WildPackets' European Sales Director, said: "We believe that our products offer the best value and functionality available for network and systems monitoring and performance issues. The fact that we are helping bet365 with its online services and security is testament to the many benefits our products bring to our customers."

About OmniPeek Consoles

OmniPeek is the software console for the Omni enterprise network analysis platform, providing centralized expert analysis for all networks under management. Using its intuitive user interface, network engineers -- even junior staff -- can quickly analyze faults from multiple network segments, drill down through multiple layers of analysis, and pinpoint problems that need correction.

About Omni DNX Engines

Omni DNX is an application that performs real-time packet-stream analytics on live network conversations. To accelerate troubleshooting while minimizing bandwidth consumption, Omni DNX performs its analysis locally on the remote engine and transmits only the data requested by the OmniPeek console. A single Omni DNX engine can perform analysis and monitoring on any combination of the following network types: 10/100 Ethernet, Full-duplex Gigabit, WAN and 802.11 WLAN.

About bet365

bet365 (www.bet365.com) is the internet and telephone betting division of the bet365 Group Limited, one of the UK's leading betting and gaming groups. The group has held a UK license since 1974 and now has over 600 employees.

The bet365 Group Limited operates a 24/7 customer contact centre and a thriving internet operation (based in Stoke-on-Trent), servicing over 500,000 customers in 120 different countries. The website is available in a wide range of languages with a comprehensive customer service for each and every one.

About WildPackets

Since 1990, WildPackets has been delivering real-time network analysis solutions that enable the world's organizations to keep their networks running securely and reliably, day after day. From the desktop to the datacenter, from wireless LANs to Gigabit backbones, on local segments and across distributed networks, WildPackets products enable IT organizations to quickly find and fix problems affecting mission-critical network services. WildPackets products are sold in over 60 countries through a broad network of channel and strategic partners. Customers include Cisco Systems, Comcast, EDS, Microsoft, Siemens AG, Unisys, Motorola, Deutsche Bank, and others. For further information, please visit www.wildpackets.com.

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