> > 5. One customer with four PortMasters is not overwhelming demand.
> > Sure, there are a few other people asking for this, but the
> > vast majority of Livingston's customers don't consider this
> > important.
>
> Again, from the number of questions I've seen asked about this -- and
> the huge popularity of this feature in Merit radius, I have to disagree.
> I think that it is a significant issue in many applications, especially
> an ISP situation.
>
Relative to the number of concerns I've seen expressed about other problems,
I have to say that it isn't as significant as those other issues. Again,
we're talking about engineering resource allocation. Those resources right
now are better spent on things like PRI, classless routing, and OSPF.
> > 6. The multiple login problem is not a problem which can be solved
> > on the PortMaster itself.
>
> Agreed. It's a pain in the ass. :) Hence the solution I suggested in
> my email.
>
Yes and no. The solution you proposed, as you point out, doesn't scale.
All of Livingston's products to date DO.
> > 7. RADIUS is a NON-REVENUE product for Livingston. That's right,
> > it's FREEWARE!
>
> Yes, but the succses of Livingston's PM product line is intertwined
> very closely with their own radius implimentation. Imagine, if you will:
>
Not really.
> "And our portmasters allow you to do lots of neat stuff.. if you
> compile someone else's unsupported code." :) I just can't see that working.
>
The PortMasters do lots of neat stuff without RADIUS and about 50% of
Livingstons customers don't use RADIUS.
> > 8. NO terminal server solves this problem (NO other terminal
> > server comes as close to solving this problem as Livingston).
>
> Agreed. Completely.
>
> > 9. If you're running UNIX, the place to solve this is by
> > creating a replacement for the distributed quota(1M)
>
> > 10. There are many other features which Livingston Engineering
> > is focused on which are much more important to a much
> > larger percentage of their customers.
>
> Opinion. :) *shrugs* I would say that they're all in relatively high
> demand by different segments of the market. Ahh well. It's really up to
> Livingston to decide, and given that there are already ways to solve it
> that don't require engineering investment on livingston's part, well..
> *shrugs* But it would be nice to have an official Livingston solution to
> it some year, simply to reduce the confusion.
>
However, if you look at what comes across this list and the makeup of
Livingston's customers, I'd say less than 10% consider the multiple
login issue critical, less than 25% consider it important, and that
something on the order of 80% consider classless routing and OSPF
critical. Something on the order of 75% consider PRI important.
If you were in charge of engineering and faced numbers like that,
which project would you follow?
Those numbers are based on the following sources:
1. My observations of this list.
2. My conversations with people in engineering at Livingston
3. My knowledge of the ISP industry (~95% of Livingston's
market)
4. Discussions and observations with/of other ISPs and their
netops people at various shows/conferences.
True, I didn't use any scientific methods to arrive at those figures, but
I'll bet they're fairly accurate.
Can I presume since you ignored the remainder of my message that you're not
using UNIX or that you're more concerned about PPP users?
Owen