Seriously Considering Purchasing Emerald

Chris ( chris@sensible-net.com )
Sun, 25 May 1997 17:41:30 -0400

We are a small ISP just under 500 customers. Currently we are using =
Lynux as a platform for everything but a web server for commercial =
customers. We run all of our business web pages on NT. I would like to =
integrate our accounting with account creation et. We can currently =
create a user, an email account and an entry into radius with one entry, =
that is a capability I would like to keep with the addition of billing. =
My goal is one entry, made by a clerical employee to get a user into the =
system. I don't mind paying a few bucks to make that happen. My =
eventual goal is to run everything on one NT box and mirror it to =
another box using octopus or a similar product. We have the evaluation =
copy of Emerald and it looks good, I haven't been able to get everything =
to work yet but.... I really haven't tried that hard. We have pretty =
much decided to go with Emerald but I do have the following questions =
and concerns.

1. Is Telephone support available for installation and problems, even at =
night and on weekends? I don't mind paying for help but since this will =
completely run our business it is essential. I have a recurrent =
nightmare of the system going down on a Friday night and not having any =
help available until Monday
=20
2. Do we have to switch our e-mail to Postoffice? It's a great product =
but at $495 per 100 users it's a bit price!
=20
3. Can Emerald create a user home page and set the permissions and quota =
on it at account setup?

I am not trying to be picky but this is a big decision and I want to =
choose the right product. I estimate the total cost of this project to =
be about $6000 and I really don't want to make a bad call.

Thanks

Chris Carey
chris@sensible-net.com