tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7359791525336117032.post2917851238144156562..comments2020-04-24T20:58:07.807-05:00Comments on Castles of Air: Affordable Care Act rollout bluesAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05324968314168283095noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7359791525336117032.post-75436284884045158552014-01-08T12:10:14.912-06:002014-01-08T12:10:14.912-06:00Russel, you are wasting your time trying to convin...Russel, you are wasting your time trying to convince people who aren't in the business. This happens almost monthly with me when projects are rolled out. Ten years ago, we rolled out the annual enrollment internal Web site for a large bank in which 120,000 employees would be able to enroll for benefits such as ADD, LTC and health insurance (ironically). The enrollment period lasted four months so we, and the bank, never expected more than 10% of employees to try and enroll on the first day. Predictably, the site crashed. But as people saw this they began to wait and spread it out and within two days, the site began working as excepted for everyone. This is standard stuff but laymen don't understand this.Ed Glosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14135685140513754313noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7359791525336117032.post-28997025832471561832013-10-08T10:48:59.184-05:002013-10-08T10:48:59.184-05:00Dear anonymous guy,
I'll be happy to approve ...Dear anonymous guy,<br /><br />I'll be happy to approve your comment containing empty snark, but not if you post as "anonymous."Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05324968314168283095noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7359791525336117032.post-83358002739994387312013-10-08T09:56:13.126-05:002013-10-08T09:56:13.126-05:00Not to mention the fact that the government usuall...Not to mention the fact that the government usually has to buy equipment and services from the lowest bidder.<br />I'm not saying that buying from the lowest bidder necessarily results in shoddy construction. After all, a thousand lowest bidders got us to the moon. The way the bidding process works is, you write up a document saying what the equipment has to do (e.g., 16 racks capable of providing 100 amps of power. 128 servers with X many cores and Y amount of storage; load-balancing software capable of handling this many parallel HTTP sessions, etc.). Vendors submit their proposals, and you buy the cheapest one that fits the spec.<br />So the obvious problem is that you have to be very careful in how you write the spec: it describes the smallest system you're willing to put up with. If you underestimate the size of the job, you may be stuck with equipment that isn't up to the task.<br />You may also discover that you've left out some requirement that makes a difference: for instance, the lowest bidder might offer you a router without an intuitive interface, or one very different from the one you're used to, meaning that you now have to get up to speed on the new interface before being able to do anything else.<br />So yes, I agree that it would have been remarkable if the exchanges had worked flawlessly on day one.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com