Best Internet Selects PortMaster 3 for "Next Generation" Connectivity
Background
Best Internet Communications is one of the fastest-growing web hosting, connectivity, and co-location service companies on the West Coast. With 14 points of presence (POPs), it covers the entire San Francisco Bay Area. Unlike other ISPs, Best virtually gives away its dial-up Internet connection service so its customers, most of them website developers, can have fast and uninterrupted access to their own customers' websites.
"We have a very technical customer base," explains Jim Zarley, President and CEO of Best Internet. "Eighty percent of our customers don't use dial-up just to get to the Internet but to upload files to our servers. Best Internet's plans for the future," adds Zarley, "include extending our Web access and hosting business beyond Northern California including North America, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific."
To support continuous, high-speed connectivity between its customer base, Web server hosts, and the Internet, Best uses a network of access servers with redundant T3 connectivity direct to major Internet backbone providers.
The Challenge: Fast, Dependable Access
Since beginning operations three years ago, Best has counted on Livingston's PortMaster family of InterNetworking Systems servers to provide the maximum reliability and ease of management that are critical to the company's success. "PortMaster 2 technology served us well while we were providing 28.8K dial-up," explains Bob Tomasi, Chief Operating Officer for Best Internet. "But it was time to upgrade to a more robust access layer." To ensure optimum performance and throughput for its 2,000 plus business customers and 20,000 dial-up users, Best needed a product that would smoothly transition their customers from analog to K56flex to ISDN. Best management therefore sought an all-digital solution.
The Solution
Best's technical team was already familiar with the reliability and easy management features of Livingston's PortMaster hardware products and ComOS. That's why, in the fall of 1996, they were more than willing to beta test the PortMaster 3 Integrated Access Server.
"Next Generation" Hardware Design. "The first thing we noticed about the Port-Master 3 when we opened it up," observes Rich White, Best's Chief Technology Officer, "was the quality of its engineering -- the layout of the boards and the modems. We hadn't even seen how it worked, but we were amazed at how well-designed it was. We plugged in our first PortMaster 3 in September of 1996, and it has proved to be virtually bullet proof."
White and his fellow engineers also liked the PortMaster 3's integrated functionality and compact chassis design that minimizes cable and space requirements. When they noticed the expansion slots inside the chassis, they immediately realized the PortMaster 3 also allows for significant scalability.
Reliable, Flexible, and Easy-to-Administer Operating System"The PortMaster 3 was heavily evaluated over a period of eight months by a team of some of the best network and systems engineers in the business," White reports. "No problems occurred during the testing, and the PortMaster 3 consistently outperformed all other devices in its class." Best engineers also liked the fact that, despite the enhanced features of the PortMaster 3 over the PortMaster 2, Livingston's ComOS code remained stable and easy to administer.
Other PortMaster 3 features of critical importance to Best Internet include:
- Modem pool architecture enabling fault-tolerant resource management
- Multichassis PPP enabling multiple ISDN B-channels to span two or more PortMaster 3s in a single huntgroup
- Low heat generation delivering unsurpassable performance and reliability
- Livingston's ChoiceNet offering centralized filter management capability
- OSPF routing that is fully compliant with RFC-1583 and RFC-1587 (NSSA)
The Results
As the figure on page 3 shows, Best Internet upgraded its entire Bay Area network by replacing PortMaster 2 technology with 43 of Livingston's next-generation PortMaster 3s.With their new PortMaster 3s deployed, Best can support ISDN service for all of its key customers, including PRI-line service at five new locations.
"Our business plan has always been to provide the highest quality Internet service", explains Zarley. In addition, with the emergence of 56K and ISDN, we want to provide our customers with the latest technological advances. This, coupled with the ability to do remote diagnostics and maintenance, is what drove our decision to install the Livingston PortMaster 3 technology."
"I sleep better at night," White concludes, "knowing that Best Internet has PortMaster 3s on the edge. For fast, reliable access, the Livingston Portmaster 3 is the best price/performance product on the market."
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