OT: Looking for old commercial web hosting platforms

ton has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Beloved monks,

This is fairly off topic, but I got a lot of good leads the last time I sought help in this area, so I thought I'd give it a go.

I'm trying to invalidate two related patents, both dealing with commercial web hosting. The first appears to claim a system in which customers made account changes to a central database (e.g., increasing quota, increasing bandwidth), and then those changes are somehow distributed to a managed web hosting server. The changes are probably inputed via a control panel, but that's not a requirement.

The second describes a web hosting company with servers in different geographic locations, along with a server inventory database (with fields for things like CPU speed, RAM, and OS) that is accessible by customers. Again, the inventory data is probably accessible through a control panel, and likely only for the computers on which a customer has an account, but that's not a requirement.

I'm looking for any evidence that a web hosting provider did either of these things before May 1999.

Many thanks,

-Ton

Comment on OT: Looking for old commercial web hosting platforms

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Re: OT: Looking for old commercial web hosting platforms by talexb (Chancellor) on Jan 25, 2007 at 03:18 UTC
Have you checked `pair Networks`, the web provider that hosts this site? They just celebrated their 11th birthday, which would put them opening their doors in 1996. They've had the Account Control Centre (ACC) for a while, but I don't know if it was around before May 1999. However, there are some members here who work at `pair` .. perhaps mattr is one? If not, I'm sure that the gods can contact someone suitable at `pair` and you can find out that way. And it goes without saying, but those patents sound ridiculous. Not novel at all. Alex / talexb / Toronto "Groklaw is the open-source mentality applied to legal research" ~ Linus Torvalds	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^2: OT: Looking for old commercial web hosting platforms by ton (Friar) on Jan 25, 2007 at 03:51 UTC
Thanks for the tip! I sent them an email a few months ago, and didn't get a reply. Part of the issue is the necessity of "cold-calling" people about a backend (generally proprietary) system from almost eight years ago... Oh gods, can you aid thy humble supplicant?	[reply]
Re: OT: Looking for old commercial web hosting platforms by clscott (Friar) on Jan 25, 2007 at 04:37 UTC
The webmin website goes back to 1998 Webmin versions 0.82 and above has several common functions for executing code on remote Webmin servers. and that was released in 2000. -- Clayton	[reply]
Re^2: OT: Looking for old commercial web hosting platforms by ton (Friar) on Jan 25, 2007 at 20:05 UTC
Thanks! Hmm... it has the web interface and the configuration changes, but I'm not seeing those changes being made to a central database, then moving to the server. Am I missing something?	[reply]
Re: OT: Looking for old commercial web hosting platforms by jhourcle (Prior) on Jan 25, 2007 at 12:32 UTC
I can't name specific ISPs with those featues, but I worked for an ISP at that time, and we tried to keep records maintained on three big lists of ISPs ... I can only remember one right now 'thelist.com' -- combined with the Internet Archive, and you can search for who existed back then At least one of the lists also listed web hosting plans that the ISPs offered, and their features ... I just can't remember the name / domain for the other two lists ... does anyone else remember? (it seems that Boardwatch had a list, but I don't remember using imagemaps to select, so I don't think that's one of the two I'm forgetting ... as they published hardcopy also, you might be able to find a back issue) Update: I think one of the other sites was isps.com, but they don't seem to have web hosting lists from that time period (I stopped working for an ISP in 1999, so I know they existed back then)	[reply]