Zhang Yuxuan, a reporter from China Economic Weekly
On January 4, the epidemic situation in Xi'an was still grim, and the local health code, Xi'an "One Code Pass", once again had a large-scale downtime failure, adding a twist and turn to Xi'an City, which is "achieving zero social clearance".
(On January 4, Xi'an", "One Code Pass" had a large-scale downtime failure.) Photo courtesy of the interviewee)
This is not the first time that xi'an's "one code pass" has occurred in this situation, in this round of epidemic, on December 20, 2021, there was already a "one code pass" failure. Within two weeks, Xi'an "One Code Pass" was down twice.
On January 5, at the 47th press conference on the prevention and control of the new crown pneumonia epidemic in Xi'an, the spokesperson showed a positive attitude towards solving various situations in the prevention and control of the epidemic, "In the epidemic prevention and control work, there have been many unexpected emergencies that are difficult to predict, although we have predicted and prepared in advance, there are still flaws, and some service guarantees have not been able to keep up in time, bringing temporary inconvenience to the masses, and we are doing our best to actively solve them." ”
On January 6, a reporter from China Economic Weekly called the Xi'an "One Code Pass" customer service hotline, and the other party replied, "At present, the maintenance of the 'One Code Pass' has been completed, and since then there has been no feedback from the public that there is a system collapse." ”
But how does downtime happen? Why does it appear twice in a short period of time?
Why is there downtime?
Relevant parties explained the reasons for the downtime of the "One Code Pass" on January 4, saying that "(The cause of the accident) has surged in user visits in a short period of time, and the number of visits has reached more than 10 times the peak of normal times, resulting in network congestion."
This explanation almost copied the statement of Liu Jun, director of the Xi'an Big Data Resources Management Bureau, when the "one code pass" failure occurred on December 20, 2021. At that time, Liu Jun apologized to the public for the downtime of the "one-code pass" and explained it, which also gave the controversial suggestion at the time, "suggesting that the general public should not display the code and bright code unless necessary."
This matter was once on weibo hot search, and was jokingly called by netizens as "non-essential non-bright code, if necessary code is not bright".
In the prevention and control of the epidemic, the importance of "one code pass" needs no further words. After two weeks, the same issue was "overturned" again, and the relevant responsible persons could not escape the blame. In the early morning of January 5, the Organization Department of the Xi'an Municipal Party Committee announced that Liu Jun, secretary of the party group and director of the Xi'an Big Data Resources Management Bureau, was suspended for inspection due to ineffective performance of his duties.
A senior electronic technology industry insider analyzed to reporters that from the currently known information, the reason for the frequent collapse of Xi'an's "one code pass" is most likely that the problem of big data concurrency is not solved, and the system may have problems in the performance and logic of the code, the testing of use scenarios and server hardware equipment.
According to the public information on the local government website, Xi'an "One Code Pass" was approved by the Municipal Joint Prevention and Control Command on February 18, 2020, led by the Municipal Big Data Resources Management Bureau, developed and deployed by China Telecom Xi'an Branch, and officially launched for trial operation.
According to the public data of Xi'an Big Data Resources Management Bureau in May 2021, the "One Code Pass" platform has accumulated more than 30 million registered users, more than 200,000 registered supermarkets and enterprises, nearly 50,000 registered subways, buses and taxis, and nearly 3 billion code scans, facing 21 district and county development zones, more than 200 streets, more than 4,300 communities, and 12,000 community epidemic control personnel at all levels, using big data to assist in the circulation of nearly 400,000 people. And more than 400,000 people complete nucleic acid testing or vaccination workers every day.
And such a system was developed in three days.
In June 2021, China Telecom's official website published a propaganda article from the People's Post and Telegraph. The article focuses on how China Telecom Xi'an Branch "overcomes many difficulties" to develop Xi'an's "one code pass" to protect the health of more than 10 million people, "all members of the three days and three nights sleepless, developed Xi'an personal electronic identification code (that is, 'one code pass')".
But in the eyes of the above-mentioned industry insiders, the product developed in such a short period of time is likely to be a demo (small sample), "just having this function does not mean that it is a mature product." Mature products need to simulate and restore the real scene during the testing stage, and at the same time stress test with threads that exceed the actual number of users, and pass multiple performance tests and stress tests before they can be run online.
Behind the development of "one code pass"
How exactly is The Xi'an "One Code Pass", which serves tens of millions of people, "developed and deployed" by China Telecom Xi'an Branch? The reporter has called the relevant departments of the company several times, but the phone has not been answered.
According to a number of public bidding results, "One Code Pass" is under the construction of China Telecom Xi'an Branch, jointly undertaken by a number of different companies, rather than an independent development and operation of China Telecom.
(The procurement announcement shows that Xi'an Neusoft is one of the developers of "One Code Pass".) ）
Regarding the system development of "One Code Pass", according to a procurement announcement in March 2020, the Xi'an Branch of China Telecom Co., Ltd. conducted a single-source procurement from Xi'an Neusoft System Integration Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Xi'an Neusoft") for the development project of the one-code system for the epidemic joint control platform. The reason for this is that "the platform software needs to be upgraded on the basis of the previous cooperation products between our company and Xi'an Neusoft System Integration Co., Ltd. to form a joint epidemic control platform". In fact, at this time, more than ten days have passed since the trial operation of the "one code pass" online, and this announcement is quite a bit of a first cut and a later play.
(The procurement announcement shows that Merrill Lynch Data, a listed company on the New Third Board, provides engine system operation and maintenance services for "One Code Pass".) ）
In terms of operation and maintenance, on December 24, 2021, three days after the first downtime accident of "One Code Pass" in this round of epidemics, three procurement announcements on the same day showed that the "One Code Pass" operation and maintenance services were handed over to three different companies in the form of "single source procurement". Among them, Xi'an Neusoft is responsible for business platform operation and maintenance services, China Translation Technology (Shaanxi) Co., Ltd. is responsible for data platform operation and maintenance services, and Merrill Lynch Data Technology Co., Ltd. (831546) is responsible for code engine system operation and maintenance services. The reporter had called the above three companies, but none of the calls were answered.
In terms of equipment procurement, two other procurement announcements in 2020 show that some of the hardware equipment of "One Code Pass" is purchased from Xi'an Zhaotian System Engineering Co., Ltd. and Hangzhou Anheng Information Technology Co., Ltd. in the form of "single source procurement". These devices include 250 one-code scanning devices, as well as aiLPHA big data intelligent analysis platform DAS-ABL-A800, comprehensive traffic probe DAS-ABL-SP600, database auditing and risk control software DAS-DBAuditor-1500C4, etc.
(Alibaba Cloud Computing provides SMS services for "One Code Pass.") ）
Even in the hotline service and SMS service of "One Code Pass", China Telecom, as a domestic mobile communication operator, has entrusted the business of this sector to other companies. The hotline service outsourcer is The Zhongyi Technology Branch of Shaanxi Communication Services Co., Ltd., while the SMS service was selected by Alibaba Cloud Computing (Beijing) Co., Ltd.
Industry insiders pointed out that a number of procurement bidding in the above projects in the form of "single-source procurement" to be discussed, according to the relevant laws and regulations, "one code pass" such projects in the bidding process should be three-way comparison, if you want to use a single source, you must explain enough sufficient reasons. He believes that the reasons for "single-source procurement" in some procurement announcements are not sufficient, some reasons are very perfunctory, and there are competitors in the market for many procurement projects, while the bidding parties still insist on "single-source procurement" for various reasons, which is itself doubtful.
Editor-in-charge: Guo Jiyao
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