Other than Internet access services, the company also provides services for network design, installation, web development and hosting, domain name registration, etc. For remote-access services, POL uses Cisco and Xyplex access services at major POPs and Linux with Rocketport cards at smaller sites. Linux is used on HP Netservers and Compaq machines to provide Internet services like SMTP, POP, DNS, WWW, FTP, Proxy, etc. Choosing a network operating system for Internet operations is a very important decision. You need to be certain about the stability of your entire system, as the setup has to serve so many clients around the clock.
Nobody can afford a service outage, even for a few minutes.
Since we planned to use Intel-based servers, we had to choose between a Windows NT server and Linux. The most important factor was not the cost of the operating system, but the stability of the ISP facility. Our criteria for selecting an operating system depended on the following factors. Some of these are being utililized in a similar environment, and some in educational institutions. Linux was well-tested for stability by our staff in operations of different nature for many years.