After a brief lull, the Ministry is on the cusp again.

One of the things that pushed it higher this time was the angry feelings of those who failed to buy the train tickets by the 12306 net before the long holiday, and the surprising discovery that the ministry had a trick for the suspect

After a brief lull, the railway ministry once again stood on the cusp. This time to push it to a high point is the long vacation before the 12306 net to buy the train tickets to the people angry feelings, and people "surprised" to find that the Ministry of Railways for this suspected "bid shady" but there are many problems of the system put more than 300 million yuan.

1.49 billion times of "impact"

The coming long if in the past years generally triggered the people's travel craze, as the most popular way of transportation, the railway naturally ushered in a new round of passenger traffic, the resulting wave of ticket sales to put into operation less than two years 12306 system brought a new round of test.

Unfortunately, the newly upgraded 12306 did not appear to withstand the pressure before the "crash" situation, but in the daily hits up to 1.49 billion times under the "impact", the new system forced "queuing" function began to play a role.

However, this function has not been able to improve the purchase of the ticket process customer experience, but because the network congestion caused by the queue time is too long to trigger the phenomenon of repeated queuing, the Ministry of Railways specifically issued a statement of apology.

Public skepticism and discontent quickly evolved into the pursuit of a variety of professionals. First, a media survey of 12306 Web sites and the contractors behind them, and the public, including lawyers and students, drew the Ministry of Railways to publicize 12306 of the tender, and some IT professionals calculated their cost and system architecture optimization based on the website interface and system background architecture.

This is not 12306 for the first time to become the "light" of the Ministry of Railways, the system since June 12, 2011 in Beijing-Tianjin Railway pilot network ticketing, only to June 15, not IE browser users can not buy tickets, directly affected about 20 million users.

At the end of 2011, with the T-Head and the K-word train entering the system, the difficulties of login, the withholding of tickets, the duplication of registration status information and the lengthy time required to buy tickets were exposed.

To this end, the Ministry of Railways to upgrade the 12306 system, that is, "a new generation of ticket system project." Once in 2010, the successful bidder of "Railway Customer service Center Information System Phase I Project" of Taiji Computer Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Tai Chi shares) again won the bid, the winning amount of the previous phase of the project 48.95 million to 199 million yuan, Tai Chi shares will be responsible for the first production center hardware and software equipment Computer room strong and weak electrical wiring system and monitoring system.

"A more failed design"

However, the 12306 system, which completed its upgrade in September, fell again in the surge of booking in the National Day holiday. The Tai Chi stake, which only assumed the behind-the-scenes role, was pushed into the spotlight after the media disclosed it.

A person engaged in the boss (Business & Twist Support system, that is, business operations support system) systems design of the reporter said: "From the results, the Ministry of Railways this system can be said to be quite a failure, not to mention the cost of 300 million, is only spent 30 million can also be said to be a relatively unsuccessful design, "but" a number of 10 million operators, the initial construction of a boss system will probably need to invest 50 million U.S. dollars, plus the overall maintenance cost of three years to vote about 70 million dollars, The instantaneous concurrent number of railway ticketing system is much larger than that of operators, and the number of users is far higher than 10 million levels. ”

"Since want to do information systems do not casually fooled, especially in this way with the people's lives closely related to the system, do not good for the contractor is also Shino things." "A software service provider who has been involved in 12306 system construction has confessed to this reporter," If the previous problem is the system architecture and the lack of access estimates caused, then the problem is that many problems have solutions but the overall commitment can not guarantee proper solution. ”

"Some people have been questioning the issue of tendering, and some in the industry think that less investment can be better than the current effect, I can only say that they do not understand the complexity behind this, such a project at present such an investment for another to do the effect may not be better than the current state." "said the former person.

Some people in the industry believe that, relative to the civil aviation 10 billion of IT support investment, the bank 14.5 billion IT support investment, telecom operation support system 10 billion input, railway ticket such a huge complex and related to all the national Operation support System, only 100 million inputs a year, is obviously not enough, "the server is not enough, Lack of bandwidth, poor deployment architecture, software quality. In fact, all these problems require input, the server is not enough to make up, the bandwidth is not enough to add, the architecture is not to be changed, software does not need to improve, these can not be the Ministry of Railways officials sitting in the office to think out, but also need it professional and technical personnel research, need them to work, these also need to pay, ”

"Ultimately, the user experience, depending on the implementation of the technology, on the other hand, depends on your understanding of the service, which is more important than the latter." "An engineer who works in software architecture says to our correspondent," the same level of technology, a deeper understanding of the service, more able to from the user point of view of developers to make products will be closer to perfection. ”

The former said: "From the point of view of the Railway ministry clients, 12306 recurring problems lies in the Ministry of Railways on the concept of service is too shallow, see everyone said ticket is difficult, then do a website to sell tickets, see the website ticket has congestion caused system crashes, then everyone in the online also line up. ”

"Of course the most fundamental reason is the shortage of railway capacity," a person working in the local railway administration said to our correspondent, "The system is doing well again, and the channels for the purchase of tickets are perfect, if there are 1000 people to buy tickets, and the capacity is only enough to provide 800 people, the remaining 200 people can not go." ”

"The most fundamental solution is to upgrade capacity and speed up the construction of the railway network." After the 7 23 accident, the control of railways, especially the construction of high-speed railway, was overkill. "said the aforementioned.