$6.1 Million Contract for Hostworks

Tuesday, August 16, 2005

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Hostworks has entered into a major managed services contract with Ticketek to take responsibility for hosting the ticketing company's critical business applications for the next three years.

The $6.1 million agreement will see ASX-listed Hostworks manage Ticketek's critical IT infrastructure for both Australia and New Zealand. This includes Ticketek's internal ticketing, data warehousing and financial applications and email system. Hostworks will also provide Ticketek's Disaster Recovery solution.

Ticketek Chief Executive Officer Peter Stirling Benson says the extended partnership with Hostworks is "a sensible step" to meet an integrity and security imperative.

"From where I sit, the main imperative is to ensure a secure environment," he says.

"Our technology has outgrown the space available. Also the increased importance of that technology has demanded that we house it offsite in a fully secure and managed environment.

"Given the growing importance of the online channel, it's a sensible step to move from running our own IT systems to having Hostworks provide a fully managed solution located in their secure external data centres for our IT infrastructure serving our offices in Australia and New Zealand."

He says the new arrangement will enhance stability, capacity and functionality.

Ticketek selected Hostworks as its strategic partner after examining other options in the market. Under the agreement, Hostworks will continue to manage Ticketek's web-hosting ticketing infrastructure, and will also begin to manage Ticketek's internal ticketing, data warehouse and financial applications and its email system.

To ensure 24-7 access to vital systems, Hostworks will provide physical hardware security, connectivity, data centre availability, operating system and application management.