Reply to: Spine failed

[PerlOfWisdom]

There are also two data centres in each local area, each of which has enough capacity to meet performance targets should one data centre become unavailable.

No there aren't, there are 2 data centres altogether. Unless you class a local area as England.

[datestamp]

It is interesting that they are so sure of themselves that they published this, in their mythbusters section. (They must be losing their nerve!):

The technical architecture of the Spine is not robust enough to meet the needs of the NHS Care Records Service

NHS Connecting for Health is confident that the Spine will meet the information handling needs of the NHS Care Records Service.

Realistic assessments have been conducted about the volumes of data and traffic that the Spine might have to support.

There have been checks into responsiveness, reliability, resilience and recovery which have been carried out under both routine and full load.

Before the contracts for the Programme were let, we invited architects from all the leading suppliers to assist in developing and reviewing the Spine.

Aspects of the network have since been reviewed by independent organisations including Charteris (regularly used as expert witnesses on technology) and Gartner (market-leading benchmark specialists).

Before new Spine software goes live, it must meet declared performance and capacity targets. Successful completion of these tests is required before a release can go live.

There are also two data centres in each local area, each of which has enough capacity to meet performance targets should one data centre become unavailable.

[Benny]

Sorry - | thought this was about the English Ashes Tour thread

[MarillionFan]

"Hmmm, just like you then, eh?" - oh dear. D minus.

[rootsnall]

Helps keep us all in a job though !

In my first graduate job for a big s/w house working on a government defence contract the older developers were always telling us of a great problem free success story on a previous contract for the Navy developing system XYZ. A year or so later I went on site and happened to get chatting to the users of XYZ about its benefits, "system XYZ, that heap of tulip, we turned it off on the first afternoon and went back to manual use" !!!

[PerlOfWisdom]

Then take all the HL7 xml and wrap it inside...wait for it...more xml! Now it is ready for transport over the network so lets wrap it inside SOAP and then encode the whole thing as HTTP trafic and send.

HTTPS - there are racks of ssl accelerators.

Then they store the whole xml "assembly" as a blob field in a database before breaking it down to convert to a simple sql query. Later on they build up the result into another xml string and send the as a https post to the requesting user's incoming web servers.

Very simple really.

[Churchill]

"HL7 xml "

Have to agree. The size of a patients file was massive. It was never going to work.

Hmmm, just like you then, eh?

[MarillionFan]

"HL7 xml "

Have to agree. The size of a patients file was massive. It was never going to work.

[XLMonkey]

PDS = Patient Demographic Service,

everything else sounds about right though.

In its defence, Choose and Book is a great service that enables Mrs Jones in Southampton to book an appointment to see a hip specialist in Strathclyde.

as if she'd ever want to.

And I would walk five hundred miles
and I would walk five hundred more
Just to see the man who'll fix my hip
'cos I just cannae walk no more

Da da da
da da da

It's another IT project up the wall.

[dc al capo to fade..]

[Trimbo]

I actually worked on this thing at the early stages (as a end-user system interacting with the spine) - was obvious then the thing wouldn't fly, WAY way over complicated as it was all basd on HL7 v3 (think masses of xml and xsd).

Then take all the HL7 xml and wrap it inside...wait for it...more xml! Now it is ready for transport over the network so lets wrap it inside SOAP and then encode the whole thing as HTTP trafic and send.

Sounds like the bit they have kept is what was called the "PDS" (or Personal Data Spine) which is effectivly a web service to lookup details of people given a number (ie, NHS Number).

Twas funny tho

[PRC1964]

Years ago I worked on the electricity privatisaton systems.

They guaranteed that you never got the cheapest electricity, but rather the cheapest that could supply all you needed.

The cheapest supplier would never have their energy bought, so they went bust.

It just shows, it never pays to be the cheapest.

[DimPrawn]

I worked on the Criminal Justice System Exchange for CJIT.

The specification reads like a spec for an email system (send data to recipients, deliver receipts for data, give data a priority, hold until delivery date, reject bad data back, retry) etc.

Did they use an off the shelf, industry std, industrial strength, cheap, robust and tried and test email server?

Nope, they coded something up from the ground as the transport and holding system.

Took years and cost a fortune.

Idiots.

[bogeyman]

There was 'big news' the other day when some massive NHS IT project was completed that allowed any nurse in an premature infant care unit to check the availability of cots in neighbouring hospital maternity units without having to spend all day phoning around.

A simple web site?

Nah! Far too simple and cheap.

I despair

[wendigo100]

what's wrong with MS outlook?

Or a Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet?

[DodgyAgent]

Never mind, the usual suspects and big donators to New Labour will still get another multi-billion pound project to screw-up next time.

what's wrong with MS outlook?