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The implementation of the UK Covid-19 dashboard

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Re: The implementation of the UK Covid-19 dashboard

#31

Post by glogla »

I skimmed the article and it seems interesting.

On the data side, they have ~7.5 billion total records and they add in 55 million new a day. On the web side, they have ~1 million daily unique users and 100k concurrent users at peak ("concurrent" means "in one minute" is seems).

I'm no expert on the web part, but I'm kind of curious why they went with the design they did for the data part. The design, and the chosen technologies make me think they treated it more like a normal web app, not like a dashboard. I would expect OLAP database, not a sharded Postgres, and the data model feels very OLTP to me as well. Or maybe is that because it's mostly time series and not traditional data model?

I'll have to go through the article in more detail.

Re: The implementation of the UK Covid-19 dashboard

#32

Post by Doctor_Fegg »

tjungblut wrote: post #12
axiosgunnar wrote: post #11

> Government project > awarded to Microsoft Hey Europe, want to stop being several decades behind in IT compared to US/China? One simple trick: Ban FAANG from public procurement in Europe! It‘s a no-brainer really. Buy locally, ideally giving small companies and startups a chance. You will have to do it anyway very soon if you want your privacy laws to be taken seriously. There might be a couple of months of friction…

The UK isn't part of the EU anymore.

Maybe GP has edited their comment, but it says "Hey Europe" and we are very definitely still part of Europe.

Re: The implementation of the UK Covid-19 dashboard

#33

Post by desas »

axiosgunnar wrote: post #11

> Government project > awarded to Microsoft Hey Europe, want to stop being several decades behind in IT compared to US/China? One simple trick: Ban FAANG from public procurement in Europe! It‘s a no-brainer really. Buy locally, ideally giving small companies and startups a chance. You will have to do it anyway very soon if you want your privacy laws to be taken seriously. There might be a couple of months of friction…

A couple of months wouldn't replace Microsoft word never mind Excel, Aws, Azure AD or Azure

Re: The implementation of the UK Covid-19 dashboard

#34

Post by tgv »

lloydatkinson wrote: post #24
trebligdivad wrote: post #5

I do wonder if the power of a distributed database is really needed here; it gets ~1 update a day, so there's no need to have clever consistency stuff. Most of the queries relate to either today's data (you open the map and zoom in to see how doomed your area is today), or the graphs showing a standard set of history (e.g. cases over the last year). You'd think you could extract that data to be static and not require…

I had the same thoughts and then it was confirmed how insane this setup is part way through: “At the time of writing, the Citus distributed database cluster adopted by the team on Azure is HA-enabled for high availability and has 12 worker nodes with a combined total of 192 vCores, ~1.5 TB of memory, and 24 TB of storage. (The Citus coordinator node has 64 vCores, 256 GB of memory, and 1 TB of storage.)” That’s beyon…

> generated statically a couple of times a day.

That would require actual work instead of selling an overpriced generic solution.

Re: The implementation of the UK Covid-19 dashboard

#35

Post by iamstupidsimple »

Closi wrote: post #17
llimos wrote: post #10

> From the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the United Kingdom (UK) government has made it a top priority to track key health metrics and to share those metrics with the public. According to Dominic Cummings (ex-adviser to the PM), this isn't true at all - one of their biggest failings early on was to not have the data and not see the priority in getting it.[1] [1] https://news.sky.com/story/dominic-cummings-heari…

The government was tracking key health metrics and sharing them at the point Dom was talking about using his iPhone. For instance on the same date, the government did it's first daily briefing and shared infection and death metrics with the public (see https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51901818 ). Tracking key health metrics and sharing those metrics with the public doesn't mean that there is modelling about the extent t…

From watching his testimony I believe Cummings was disappointed that this 'data system' wasn't available before the pandemic, precisely because that few week delay putting one together meant everything.

Re: The implementation of the UK Covid-19 dashboard

#36

Post by glogla »

trebligdivad wrote: post #5

I do wonder if the power of a distributed database is really needed here; it gets ~1 update a day, so there's no need to have clever consistency stuff. Most of the queries relate to either today's data (you open the map and zoom in to see how doomed your area is today), or the graphs showing a standard set of history (e.g. cases over the last year). You'd think you could extract that data to be static and not require…

I played with the website and it feels really nice.

My guess is that this was web people who were contracted to build a read-only daily updated dashboard instead of interactive web app so they treated it as another web app, just scaled up.

Re: The implementation of the UK Covid-19 dashboard

#37

Post by glogla »

Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #32
tjungblut wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK isn't part of the EU anymore.

Maybe GP has edited their comment, but it says "Hey Europe" and we are very definitely still part of Europe.

But one day you will put that offshore wind turbines into reverse mode and push the isles to the middle of Atlantic, right?

Re: The implementation of the UK Covid-19 dashboard

#38

Post by shroompasta »

rm445 wrote: post #26
axiosgunnar wrote: post #11

> Government project > awarded to Microsoft Hey Europe, want to stop being several decades behind in IT compared to US/China? One simple trick: Ban FAANG from public procurement in Europe! It‘s a no-brainer really. Buy locally, ideally giving small companies and startups a chance. You will have to do it anyway very soon if you want your privacy laws to be taken seriously. There might be a couple of months of friction…

> Microsoft > Ban FAANG I know exactly what you mean, but is that what we're doing now? Including Microsoft in FAANG but not changing the acronym?

to be fair, microsoft should've been included in the first place. they've been teetering top 3 market cap for a while now.

Re: The implementation of the UK Covid-19 dashboard

#39

Post by hunter321 »

jsmith99 wrote: post #27
one-more-minute wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general the gov.uk website is stellar. Lots of good info, and plenty of thought has gone into making everything clear, accessible and pleasing to the eye. Things generally work in a way that they really don't on most public org websites. The team behind it blog a fair bit about how they've made these things happen. https://insidegovuk.blog.gov.uk The only downside is that they often send you to sites run by other,…

They had an early win getting a effective and consistent UI accross government sites, but digitising the underlying processes is a work in progress. Once you click that beautiful and accessible green submit button, it's not impossible a printer in Swansea whirs to life to print your answers out into the original paper form.

http://ehmipeach.defra.gov.uk/

>Using the right browser - only use Microsoft Edge PEACH is compatible with Microsoft Edge, but only when Internet Explorer mode is enabled. For guidance on setting up Internet Explorer mode in Edge, follow this link to instructions on the Microsoft Support Page.

Yeah, there's still some way to go.

Re: The implementation of the UK Covid-19 dashboard

#40

Post by samwillis »

one-more-minute wrote: post #7
CraigJPerry wrote: post #2

I like the UI design in figure 1. There’s no crap in the way of the data but i don’t feel overwhelmed either. My eyes can scan across sections and it feels natural, theres no firehose effect. I like the thought that’s gone into showing the % vaccinated in the top right. I like the dashed underlines telling me that some explainatory text is available. I think the page looks inoffensive but is clearly focussed on being…

In general the gov.uk website is stellar. Lots of good info, and plenty of thought has gone into making everything clear, accessible and pleasing to the eye. Things generally work in a way that they really don't on most public org websites. The team behind it blog a fair bit about how they've made these things happen. https://insidegovuk.blog.gov.uk The only downside is that they often send you to sites run by other,…

While I almost entirely agree with you, having had to report positive LFT Covid tests and do the subsequent “test and trace” form this week I feel that while the UI and UX is nice the flow of those forms are really quite pore. There are repetitive/redundant questions plus inconsistent and out of date advise. It’s probably more an effect of the difficult moving target of changing rules and advice, but for what is an important government process everyone is coming into contact with I though it would be better. Maybe wishful thinking though.
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