A method, system, computer program product, and related business methods
for phased rollout of an upgraded version of a web-based business
information system are described. URLs associated with client requests
remain the same even where the target subscriber accounts have been
upgraded. Client requests for both upgraded and non-upgraded accounts are
received by a common set of web servers. Client requests representing
external entry points are trapped, and the receiving web server accesses
a login router database to determine whether the target subscriber
account is upgraded or non-upgraded, and then transfers the request to an
appropriately-versioned application server. Application server sets are
mapped to database sets according to system version, allowing the
upgraded system database schema to be substantially different than the
non-upgraded database schema. An early adopter program business method
leveraging the abilities of such web-based business information system is
also described. Applications to environments other than phased rollout
are described, such as URL-agnostic differentiation and routing of client
requests according to class-of-service of the target subscribing account.