QUT students design a $500 cloud-based census server four times better than IBM’s $9 million system

AS the ABS spends days getting its $9 million census server back to full operation, two students have built a version four times better — for $500.

QUT students Bernd Hartzer and Austin Wilshire build a better 2016 Census server that is four times better than the $9 million server that the ABS use from IBM for the disastrous 2016 Census. Picture: Marc Robertson

WHILE the Australian Bureau of Statistics has spent days scrambling, and failing, to get its $9 million census server back up to full operation two Queensland uni students on the weekend built a better census server for $500.

Austin Wilshire and Bernd Hartzer, from the Queensland University of Technology, took part in a hack-a-thon run by QUT student group The Code Network, to build a system that could handle nearly 40 times as many census submissions per second.

Unlike the IBM system that the Australian Bureau of Statistics said it took offline when it detected a distributed denial of service attack, the system the students built was designed to handle exactly that situation.

Instead of running the census on a traditional closed computer server system, the students created the website Make Census Great Again and tested it on Amazon’s cloud services that spread the load over a system of servers connected through the cloud as demand increased.

Mr Wilshire, the 18-year-old first year IT student at QUT, said he was surprised IBM’s census server wasn’t built on a cloud-first design.

Queensland University of Technology students Austin Wilshire, 18, and 24-year-old Bernd Hartzer have better a better census server than IBM did for the ABS. Picture: Marc Robertson

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Mr Wilshire and Mr Hartzer, 24, said the two students spent most of their Saturday coding their system and then about 40 minutes on Sunday getting it up and running and load testing it to make sure it would be able to cope with the demand of an online census.

“When we were making the system, going through the process and speaking with more experienced people, we were wondering why they didn’t go in this direction,” Mr Wilshire said

“I was very surprised they didn’t go with cloud infrastructure but that gets into the whole security thing.”

The students admitted a problem with a cloud-based system was the issue of ensure information remained private when you don’t own the servers.

“That wasn’t our challenge, it was just a proof of concept that doing this way is going to be the better way in the future,” he said.

“I think what’s going to have to happen is that if the government is ever wanting to do this sort of stuff is that privacy laws and policies are going to need to change to keep updated with technology or they’re going to have to keep it offline because otherwise it’s just going to crash every year.”

The students won first prize of a Microsoft tablet at the hack-a-thon for their census server. Mr Wilshire said it took $500 in server costs and nothing to load test.

If IBM and the ABS are impressed with the homemade alternative, they are keeping it to themselves. So far, the students have not heard from either party.

“Not yet but I’m sure it’s only a matter of time,” Mr Wilshire said.

Australian Statistician and Head of the 2016 David Kalisch has had many better Augusts in his lifetime. Picture Kym Smith

Meanwhile the Australian Bureau of Statistics spent yesterday dealing with frustrated Australians who were still unable to access the online census.

Many complained on Twitter that they had used up to six different devices and combinations of different web browsers and operating systems but were still seeing nothing but error messages.

Many of the complaints concerned error messages about JavaScript being turned off even when they had it turned on.

The ABS has posted a troubleshooting page for people still unable to access the online census, although it does not give any information about JavaScript options and, significantly, the people who cannot see the census page on their computer also cannot see the link to the troubleshooting information.

The 2016 census message you might get logging onto your mobile.

The ABS says people who were having difficulty still with the online census should ring and request a paper version.

There was also a swag of complaints online on Tuesday from people saying that emails from the ABS containing their online submission passwords were taking days to arrive. The ABS advice is for people to write their password down on a piece of paper.

The ABS on Tuesday declined to give an update of how many Australians have managed to successfully submit their census online.

IBM versus QUT students:

IBM-built Census server

1 million page loads per hour

260 Census submissions per second

Load testing budget: $469,367.50

Total cost: $10 million

Student-designed cloud-based census server

4 million page loads per hour

10,000 Census submissions per second

Load testing budget: $0

Total cost: Less than $500 (*does not include staffing costs, which were two days work for two students, and extras including pizza to fuel programming sessions)

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