Does anyone know what kind of capacity Healthcare.gov servers are operating at?

[Gravitycollapse]

I'll be really honest when I say I'm starting to get extremely frustrated with the general lack of access to the site. I've been trying for 3 days and the best I've been able to do is get an account created. That happened literally 15 minutes ago. And now I can't log in. I keep getting a 404 error.

Either these servers are receiving world record amounts of inquiries or they are inadequate. And I wish someone would just come out and say which one it is.

[LiberalElite]

1. Or, like with the New York State site -

it could be hackers.

[Barack_America]

14. A little denial of service action?

Don't doubt it in the least, especially considering I heard several R's today using problems with the ACA sites as justification for continuing the shutdown.

[bigwillq]

2. You have plenty of time to enroll.

Give them some time to work out some of the glitches.

[Gravitycollapse]

3. They should have had these glitches figured out before enrollment started.

We are facing one of the most important historical events of recent American history. There really is no excuse for inadequately prepared servers or websites. I can understand record setting inquiries but I have a feeling that isn't the only issue.

These servers should be humungous.

[bigwillq]

5. Stuff happens.

Technology, and its users, are not perfect.
I don't have the answers to why these things happen, but they do.
We just launched a new website at work. We thought we were as prepared as possible and still ran into glitches.

By Jan 1, 2014, you will be insured, even if this means you can't sign up for a few days.

[MH1]

8. I've been working on major IT projects since 1997 and I have never seen

a go-live that didn't have issues.

I'm betting this project team didn't have a moon-shot kind of budget, either.

[Gravitycollapse]

10. Why wouldn't they have an absurdly massive budget for this? It's one of the most important

government websites ever put into service. The budget should have been limitless and the servers should have been massive. These people operate some of the largest farms on the planet. What are they using for this website?

[Agschmid]

13. The budget can't be limitless...

[MH1]

16. How did the money get budgeted for it? Through Congress? nt

[JoePhilly]

15. +1000

I've been working in emerging tech since the late 80s, and nothing has changed.

You can model a system all you want.

But you do not know what its really going to be like until it goes live.

And for a government site like this ... you can't toss out an ALPHA site or even a BETA ... and you can't move the GA date.

[JoePhilly]

4. Both.

They had to get it off the ground on OCT 1st.

Any new system that will have millions of simultaneous users at the start, will experience issues. No way to avoid it.

That's probably why the sign up period is 6 month.

They knew that the system would probably not be able to handle everything in the first couple weeks. But demand will start to spread out.

So ... both are true. Huge response, limited capacity.

[Gravitycollapse]

7. Limited capacity is not a very good excuse. These servers should have been beefy enough...

To handle a massive influx of traffic. I don't expect them to handle world record setting traffic. But it's been 3 days and there hasn't been a single point in that time that the website has functioned properly for me. Not once.

[JoePhilly]

12. Can you predict the network capacity needed for ...

a 50 state system, with thousands of permutations, permutations that have changed up until the "go live date", that can handle MILLIONS of simultaneous visits from the first minute it goes live?

If you can ... you would be able to take your pick of 7 figure positions, that are VP level roles at any number for fortune 500 companies.

Also realize that the capacity you want for "day 1" is not what you actually need on "day 100". Its not an "influx" to some existing system ... it is a NEW system.

Oh wait ... the government has unlimited funds!!!! How did I forget that?

And clearly, because YOU had trouble, the entire system sucks. I'm sure at some point this site like Amazon, will allow you to write a review and complain.

[Gravitycollapse]

18. If only a very limited number of people are actually getting through, this is going to go on...

for a long time. Do you understand how that's quickly going to become a very serious problem? Sorry, but if it was known that these servers would be so overwhelmed another system should have been devised. I'm not asking that they use magic.

Why didn't they establish rules for access? Like using last names in alphabetical order? Certain time frames allow certain individuals with last names to access the site.

[JoePhilly]

20. How limited is that number of people ... you have some stats on that?

You do not.

Why is it a "serious problem"?

People will have months to sign up. Most who really need to do so will be able to do so in the first couple weeks. Then, demand will drop off.

As for the silly rule you propose ... when do you turn that OFF?

What you propose an an additional feature, a feature that has to be developed, and tested. Which adds time to the development schedule. And, its a feature that you discard later.

You have no idea how "limited" the system is. But you can be sure that the folks who run it are collecting that data.

[ScreamingMeemie]

23. Because it would be Q-R throwing a fit here right now...because they would have to access the site

at 2 a.m.

...

[steve2470]

6. for giggles I tried to login at 243 AM...no luck

The servers are totally overwhelmed. I'd wait a week or so. The enrollment deadline for January 1st is December 15th, I think. You can't get new coverage before January 1st anyway.

[Rex]

9. Over capacity?

nt.

[Agschmid]

11. It went much better than the SimCity launch...

I measure everything server stress related against that...

[bhikkhu]

17. I'm giving it a couple of weeks.

Coverage doesn't start until January in any case, and there's no first-come first-serve involved. In Oregon OHP for the longest time was like that - if you weren't on, you were on a waiting list. If a problem came up, you were back in the back of the line. My family hasn't been insured for 10 years. I'm very glad to not have to worry about that anymore, and I don't mind waiting for glitches to sort out.

[JesterCS]

19. it wouldnt put it past Republicans

to pay a hacker group to cause trouble with the servers.

[pediatricmedic]

22. No indications of that, just really high demand

There is apparently a lot of communication required with different agencies and their systems.

The government should have probably consulted with one of the big game companies for help on this.

[Paulie]

21. It's likely very huge As you can still get the front page

You have millions of people hitting this site pretty much constantly.

Ah, interesting. It's two main servers, primary and backup, then using CDN for scale. O content management system it's dynamically generated static pages. Going to have to do more reading on this.

It's also all open source.

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/06/healthcaregov-code-developed-by-the-people-and-for-the-people-released-back-to-the-people/277295/

[MrsKirkley]

24. I've also been trying for the last 3 days.

I finally managed to create an account, only to find out I can't log in. Instead, I keep getting the following message: "The information you entered isn't valid." I don't know if everyone else is getting the same message or if the system somehow screwed up my account rendering it invalid.

[chill_wind]

25. Down for maintenance tonight. Been checking for the last 2 hrs

2:30- to presently 4:30 am.

"The system is down at the moment.
We're currently performing scheduled maintenance. Please try again later."


So much for the better odds of getting anywhere "off-peak"- tonight anyway. I fared no better last night at 1:30 am when it was at least still online, then, but still error-ridden.

I can't do this every night-- caffeine and sleepless in the wee hrs for nothing-- and still function the next day.