In fairness to the website at www.healthcare.gov, different companies had different sections contracted out to them. then the contractors had to make all the different components talk to each other. I believe my friend who was one of the managers for the Medicaid end of it told me, 150+ different parts had to all communicate. Then when the website got slammed with 2.8 million inquiries, it’s no wonder things were a little iffy there for a while.
20 Thoughts to “SNL: Winners and Losers”
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- Citizen Tom
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- Derecho, The
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What can one say? It’s popular
I know my friend worked 12 hour days for the past several months. I think the issue was not the individual components but trying to make them all communicate with each other.
They did a very inept job putting it together. To start with, they tried to use cloud resources instead of their own dedicated servers. Probably made sense to the nitwits in the room making decisions, but it was an obvious way to fail. It is not hard to buy your own servers and put them in a rack somewhere. Any enterprise this large should do so.
These web sites don’t build themselves. And while technicians are quite capable of building them well, the middle managers who control these things don’t know what they are doing. And make penny-wise pound-foolish decisions all the time.
I think we need to define who ‘they’ really is/are.
“I think the issue was not the individual components but trying to make them all communicate with each other.”
Yeah, that’s the story of this business. It’s typically caused by naive managers who don’t really understand technologies but who control pursestrings, making decisions.
The work was contracted out to various companies.
The Federal exchange was not budgeted in the original legislation and had to be cobbled together with different funding streams. Making this work in a big bang approach is very difficult as there are connectivity issues with systems that were never designed for connectivity and information that was never meant to be shared. Today, most systems this complex rolls on in phases and no a big bang – having to do the turn it on on one day does not allow the bugs to be worked out of the system and relies on the pre live testing which is often inadequate.
Rick – in regards to cloud – this is a perfect cloud opportunity. The demand on the system during enrollment periods should be more than the rest of the year and cloud gives them the ability to expand the footprint for those times (for a fee) and to scale it back during the rest of the year for a net cost savings.
“this is a perfect cloud opportunity”
No, it’s not. It’s very big, and important. Either of those should preclude introducing “cloud” into the equation.
It’s important to understand the underlying technologies and resources. They’re not magic; they’re not actually created magically by little fairies living in clouds. Unfortunately. we’ve created this culture where mid-level managers and beauracrats think that what they are mass-marketed is what’s real.
Now that I have a liittle time (after working with my real, tangible servers), I’ll clarify what I’m talking about.
Cloud computing is the way to go if you are doing something limited – not huge. You are renting time-slices and space on other people’s computing clusters. It’s well-targeted to small, exploratory efforts undertaken where you don’t have your own facilities, and/or can’t afford to spend a few thousand doillars on some servers.
As with most things in life, if you’re using your system much it’s going to be less expensive to buy than to continually rent. So if you’re undertaking something big and/or something that will continue, it’s probably more cost-effective to use your own machines.
But the problem with doing something HUGE in a virtual environment are that :
1. You can’t guarantee that you’re going to have as much firepower as you’ve been lead to believe that you have. If I buy 5 web servers, I know how much firepower I have. If I rent the equivalent from “JD’s house of computing”, I wouldn’t bet on it. What you’re actually renting is time on the same types of computers that you could have bought, but degraded by monitoring software.
2. You are less likely to be able to simulate and test effectively. Apparently they didn’t do it here, at all.
3. If you were using your own equipment, you can scale. You can go buy more hardware. Using virtual resources, it’s not that simple if you need more horsepower than your provider can provide.
I am sympathetic to the fact that they were short on funds. But from what I’m hearing in the mass media, it seems that the grown ups weren’t running the show here. If I heard about an effort like this froma distance, i would just assume that it’s doomed to failure.
Obviously we as a species are quite capable of building a web site that can register users. The question is, will you pay to have qualified professionals do the job? Or are you going to hire at a low rate of pay, skimp on resources, and just hope it’ll work?
Thanks for the explanation, Rick. I think this website is a good example of the points you are trying to illustrate. I have noticed in the past couple of weeks, the blog has been slow, disconnecting at times, or must plain won’t come up. It isn’t on my end since everything else is working just fine. Its at the webhost site. I have no control over it.
Do I care enough to put in my own server or let one of my other computers serve as the webserver? Oh hell no. however, if I were trying to run the entire site for healthcare.gov, I might feel differently.
I know my friend who led a team is a highly competent software specialist with a masters degree in whatever it takes to work with all software. He used to be on this blog, so if he is reading, I am waving. However, when you have 150+ components, you are only as good as your weakest link.
No complaints on my part about this site! I appreciate it.
Obviously my complaints relate to the fact that I’m a software engineer, resent the constant attempts by employers to hire at a lower pay rate than they should (and to hire “contract only” rather than hiring permanent employees), and resent being managed by people who don’t really understand the technology but who “manage things”. i.e. create nonsense meetings and fill out TPS forms and generally slow the world down.
I understand, especially about the ‘managers’ who can’t find their tails with both hands.
I’m sure that whatever set of buffoons decided to go “in the cloud” with this presented the appearance of being tech-savvy, and that they use buzzwords very effectively, and that they always appear busy and hard-working, and are on their cell phone constantly. But they’re idiots.
@Rick Bentley
The NSA gets a huge building but they used the cloud? Really? OMG.
@Rick Bentley
Heh…sounds like a good reason to delay implementation for a year…..now …where did I hear about doing just that……?
Seriously…I have not heard one good reason for delaying a year. Its just another way to screw with the ACA.
@Moon-howler
So..the fact that people cannot log on….the program has not met a single implementation deadline, “customers” are discovering that their premiums and deductibles are skyrocketing, the fact that individuals should be allowed the same privileges as business and get delays and waivers….
you haven’t seen any of that?
Some people have logged on fine. Have you tried again?
If the people don’t like the policies then they can pay the fine. Let’s see…who is causing that problem? The insurance companies or the president?
If you ask me, the big picture on this politically is – the GOP stepped into some crap and won’t be getting it off their shoe anytime soon. They’ve been doing what a minority party does for the past 5 years – present no real initiatives, just sit and snipe. Now they’ve created this situation where people are looking at them saying “and what concrete thing is it that you wanht”? They don’t know … and when they do come up with something, it is probably going to be inane.
They’re saying now they’ll do a 6-week increase while they continue “negotiations”. Seems to me the whole exercise will just exacerbate the fact that the GOP has no concrete plans for anything, and the Democrats will look like the more responsible party just by standing in place.
Alternately, if you’re John Boehner or Rand paul, here’s your chance to show that you can lead, that you have something real to offer to the American people! Good luck with that.
If the GOP could have contained themselves, they would be feeling very good right now about the Obamacare rollout and the fact that the website is a cock-up. But no. They made a misstep right into a big pile of crap.