The deeper you go underwater, the more pressure you experience, crushing you from every direction. Well, the metaphor can somewhat be applied to the world of computing as well. Case in point – this new online tax calculator that is offered by the British government in order to inform taxpayers on how their money is being spent by those elected to positions of power have apparently stalled under the tremendous load of Internet traffic that it has experienced. Word has it that from around midday onwards, the calculator showed off an error message to some users, touting that the online tax calculator service was unavailable.
A spokesman for HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) shared that around 400,000 people did make a beeline for the site during the morning, and he continued, “Our online calculator is extremely busy at this time but a full service is being restored. The mobile app is unaffected.” With 400,000 folks checking it out, it is a surefire recipe to crowd a new web service, so downtime is not unexpected at all as it does seem to suggest the lack of built-in scalability. At least it shows that folks do care about where their money has gone to.
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