Re: [RadiusNT] Long read
Dale E. Reed Jr. ( (no email) )
Wed, 12 May 1999 12:48:29 -0700
System Administrator wrote:
>
> Sorry for the length, but here goes:
>
> We are an ISP that is a sister company of a Long Distance, Cable,
> Advertising, and Paging companies. We all use the same billing software,
> which is a DOS-based piece of *^$&. The deal is this: right now we have
> Equinox SuperSerials, Ascend Max, Lucent Portmasters, and 3Com Total
> Controls all using their own software to authenticate back to an NT Domain.
> This is an administrative nightmare. I became aware of RadiusNT through
> another mailing list, and started doing research.
>
> I'm no DB expert, but I've got some background in design. Never used MS SQL
> before, but we have a copy that we can install. Emerald looks like the best
> way to go, but convincing the powers that be to ditch the old system for our
> company will be an uphill battle. Eventually, I'd like all WAN boxes to
> authenticate to one radius DB, with concurrency and accounting capabilities.
>
> Here's my question: what options do I have? As I said, Emerald looks like
> the best all around solution, but it's going to be tough to convince them to
> go with it. I know how to design a relational DB on paper well, and can
> design in Access. Can SQL be learned in a month? If not, what would
> someone charge to design a SQL DB to do the things I need it to?
RadiusNT can authenticate all those sources to the NT Domain, although
I don't recommend it. If you have some SQL experience, I think you'll
find MS SQL Server is fairly easy to use and setup. We give a full
DB schema for RadiusNT and MS SQL Server on our FTP site. RadiusNT has
a migration option that can allow you to slowly move your users over
from the NT SAM to SQL Server, without them even knowing it, or you
knowing their passwords.
I don't know what kind of hooks you might be able to make with the DOS
billing system and RadiusNT to automate the user management, though.
--
Dale E. Reed Jr. Emerald and RadiusNT__________________________________________IEA Software, Inc. www.iea-software.com