This is what we see when we visit the Australia.gov.au site today.
Service availability and scheduled outages
Service Name Status
Australia.gov.au
Australia.gov.au will be unavailable between 8pm Saturday 12 January and 6am Sunday 13 January 2013 AEDST. System upgrades are occurring during this period.
MyAccount
The MyAccount system will be unavailable between 8pm Saturday 12 January and 6am Sunday 13 January 2013 AEDST.
During this time users can login to existing Australia.gov.au accounts and access linked agency accounts (DHS, eHealth and DVA). However creating new Australia.gov.au accounts and linking to agency accounts will be unavailable.
There is a short interruption to the MyAccount system between 1.00am to 1.15am Saturday 12 January 2013 AEDST.
During this time users will be unable to login or create Australia.gov.au accounts, or link to agency accounts. However users already accessing agency accounts will be unaffected.
System upgrades are occurring during these periods. We apologise for any inconvenience.
For eHealth related issues contact the helpline on 1800 723 471 for assistance during these periods.
For more information see the links below:
Mapping
Mapping will be unavailable between 8pm Saturday 12 January and 6am Sunday 13 January 2013 AEDST. System upgrades are occurring during this period.
Search
Search will be unavailable between 8pm Saturday 12 January and 6am Sunday 13 January 2013 AEDST. System upgrades are occurring during this period.
The link were this is (was?) found is here Sunday (11am 23/01/2013):
It seems it is just tough if you (or a carer) need access to your NEHRS when these planned 10 hour outages are happening. On what basis would a decision be made to have access to the NEHRS provided by a portal that was not designed for 99.9999% uptime. What is happening is simply not fit for an e-Health system.
People do not stop having strokes, fits and heart attacks on the say so of the idiots who run this portal. Just what are NEHTA and DoHA thinking in using this clearly unsuitable portal as a gateway to a billion dollar system. Why is there not a purpose designed portal? Hopeless clowns are what these policy makers are in my view.
On the list of stupid this decision this is right up there with the IBM’s view that the world would only ever need 10 computers - until it realised it was wrong and got rolling on a few more.
This design ‘feature’ of the NEHRS needs a re-think - and now!
For a great page of design wisdom - have a look here:
Might help guys.
These two especially appealed:
I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work. - Thomas Edison
For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled. - Richard Feynman
I wonder will the B2B and other routes to the NEHRS work when we are having these outages?
David.