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Archiver > GENBRIT > 2002-01 > 1009984858


From: Liz <>
Subject: Re: 1901 Census - well, that was a non-event!
Date: Wed, 02 Jan 2002 15:20:58 +0000
References: <qdBY7.39850$4x4.4663734@news2-win.server.ntlworld.com>, <614d8d34.0201020552.554fd3f9@posting.google.com>, <3c3313a4.108926783@news.cis.dfn.de>


Paul C wrote:

> You can't economically design a site to cope with the level of demand
> which will only exist in the first day or two of the sites life.
>
> It was designed to cope with 14 hits per second - current attempts to
> access the site are 10 times that level.

I'm not sure, but isn't fourteen hits per second a rather modest and
unrealistic prediction?

(I've just been told that the BBC said it was 40 per second versus 400
per second, by the way.)
>
> Common sense would be for people to wait for a few days to avoid
> clogging up the system.

Sadly previous examples of crashing servers with new online databases,
which PRO seem not to have studied, have led to the entire site being
taken down and reworked. Given that they had a specific deadline date
for this one and other examples of disaster to study might it not have
been possible for them to get things right for the launch? I'm not
technically able to comment but common-sense would indicate that being
over-powered on launch and later being able to 'power down' once the
steady rate of usage could be calculated might have been the way to go?
Instead of having to frantically beef up in an emergency?

I don't think we are talking about only a day or two of high demand.
Each of us will take several days/weeks of steady access to collect
everything we need ... when we can get on. And remember the system
requires those using credit cards to carry on and cram as much as poss
into those 48 hr periods.....

Liz (Greenwich UK)
Who desperately didn't *want* this to be a 'we told you so' scenario.


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