Serving the South Fluminense region of Brazil and companies in Rio de Janeiro, SideNET* is a leading provider of regional dial-up access, dedicated access, and Web hosting. Because SideNET* was immediately successful and has grown rapidly, the ISP quickly experienced an increased demand for more processing power. Working with Sinco*, their Intel-Authorized Product Integrator™, SideNET has used IntelŪ products in its system from the beginning-SideNET's first servers were powered by IntelŪ PentiumŪ II 266 MHz processors and then upgraded to PentiumŪ II 450 MHz processors. "We trust the Intel platform because it's safe, robust, easy to maintain, and extremely reliable," says Flavio de Carvalho Alves, Technical Director at SideNET. "We have Intel machines that have been online for more than 400 days without shutdown. This kind of reliability strengthens our belief in Intel hardware. Choosing Intel has made our hardware downtime practically zero."

Ease of upgrading is a main reason why SideNET remains loyal to the IntelŪ platform; their need for robust, reliable hardware led them to a current configuration that includes IntelŪ PentiumŪ III dual 450/500 MHz servers IntelŪ N440BX Server Board™, and IntelŪ Astor™ chassis. And Alves points out, "The autosensing feature of Intel InBusiness 10/100 Switches has allowed our LAN throughput to grow while permitting us to maintain our current routers, access servers, and radios, which use 10 Mbps connections." SideNET's 12 servers run in a hybrid format with Windows* NT 4.0 and Linux*.

For SideNET, which operates 24 hours a day/7 days a week, this is an ideal combination because of its ease of operation and integration and its common platform. As of June 1999, SideNET was hosting 105 domains and serving 12,000 active homepages, 8,200 email customers, and more than 38,000 requests for CGI/Perl/ASP every day.

Currently, SideNET is implementing Streaming Audio applications on its IntelŪ platform, using these applications to put a number of regional radio stations into operation. "Having all these apps run without interruptions will be crucial," says Alves; "that's why we're using Intel."

Alves stresses that IntelŪ quality and reliability have kept SideNET ahead of its competition. "Although our competitors have similar policies, we've been more successful. They now have moved to Intel platforms as well, because it's unbeatable, especially in terms of support and price/performance."

"Thanks in great part to the reliable IntelŪ infrastructure," says Alves, "the quality of our operations has led us from our very humble beginnings to a recent invitation to join the Universo Online as an affiliate. This new opportunity should double the number of our active clients in the first month, which will lead to more investment in servers, all of them, without a doubt, with Intel Architecture."

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