Simple Solution to Embarrassing Collapses of Census Website due to Poor Load Testing
The sad truth is that a good load testing solution can be so simple and cost so little
(This article was initially published on LinkedIn, 2016–08–10)
09 August 2016, there was no surprise that the Australian Census website collapses due to poor load testing. Now government (including Prime Minister), ABS chief (who earns $705K a year), and many executives are busy shifting blames.
Some news headlines:
- Australia’s 2016 census website shutdown to cost $30m (the Guardian)
- Census 2016: Government, IBM settle over website crash (ABC News)
On that night, I asked my wife to submit the census earlier (before dinner) as I knew it would crash (it was advised on the Census site that the public need to submit between 6 -9 PM, which was later approved disastrous). I simply knew that very few companies can do load testing against AJAX web applications. This just proved my point again.
What I didn’t know is how much we taxpayers paid for the load testing of this quite simple web app, as reported by the news article: Census website collapses despite millions spent on IT contracts. Some numbers:
