Retailers aren’t the only ones to come under pressure from high levels of traffic. Sometimes, the government also gets it wrong. If anyone remembers the swine flu pandemic of 2009, the government decided to launch a website to allow people to diagnose themselves to relieve the strain on hospital services and phone lines.

With the number of people getting ill doubling on a daily basis, the government promised that they were going to go to appropriate lengths to ensure that the webpage could handle the pressure from the crowds.

Embarrassingly enough, they couldn’t. The webpage launched at 3pm and crashed soon after.

The webpage simply said ‘try again in a little time’. The service is designed to take pressure off GPs, help patients diagnose themselves and gain access to antiviral drugs without formal prescriptions, although callers are issued with identification numbers.

Liberal Democrats said the website crash raised serious questions about the robustness of the system. “The government claims the reason for the delay in setting up this service was because they needed to thoroughly test it to ensure this wouldn’t happen,” said health spokesman Norman Lamb. ” It is absolutely vital that the public has access to a reliable source of information on swine flu to provide reassurance and take the pressure of GP surgeries”.

Ensure your web page can appropriately handle traffic pressures by using a CDN. So get started today with CDNify.