"Metering" Database Access on the Web -Reply

[Dan Lester]

I'm amazed that any database provider is controlling your
access with logins and/or passwords these days.  They (and
you) will find that they get passed around so quickly on the
net that soon none of your folks will be able to get on, as all
of them are being used by people in some other part of the
world.  

I've discussed these issues with several vendors, and many
or most have moved to ip filtering.  We can get access to an
unlimited number of sessions on UMI's ABIInform, for
example, as long as the sessions come from 132.178.*.*   

A much less enlightened vendor, and one I'm otherwise very
happy with for CDROM databases, is Silver Platter.  They will
switch our four licenses for, say, ERIC, to web for same
price.  But....there's a gotcha that would keep me from ever
doing so....even though more rapid updating would be nice, if
potentially contradicted by slower access.  The gotcha is
that they limit you to a purchased number of "simultaneous
users", just as you meter yourself on CDROM databases. 
No big deal you say?  The big deal is when you ask them
HOW they do the metering with the nonpersistent http
protocol.  They do the one logical thing:  they set cookies on
the workstation on that ip number.   I don't mind cookies as
such, but when the cookie doesn't expire for THIRTY
MINUTES after the last hit on that database from that
workstation.  With CDROM, of course, as soon as the
database is exited by any means, the license is free.  With
cookies you could have a bunch of education students come
in, four of them do quick searches and leave, but have all of
the licenses tied up, and unavailable to the next folks who
walk in and try to use it for up to thirty minutes.  Try to
explain THAT to a class of students who all come in and use
the service/product.

We're finally going to be setting up a proxy server on campus
so that our remote students (which includes campus
students who want home access, as they buy their service
from a local ISP, as the university has contracted that out)
can log in with their student ID (SS) number and PIN number
and get access to databases that are restricted to our ip
numbers.  They aren't likely to share those with net buddies,
as that also gives access to their campus accounts, grades,
etc, etc.  o-)

cheers

dan


Dan Lester, Network Information Coordinator
Boise State University Library, Boise, Idaho, 83725 USA
voice: 208-385-1235   fax:  208-385-1394
dlester at bsu.idbsu.edu     OR    alileste at idbsu.idbsu.edu
Cyclops' Internet Toolbox:    http://cyclops.idbsu.edu
"How can one fool make another wise?"   Kansas, 1979.