DPS System Problems: Attack On the Web Bots

Note: This is the fifth in a series of posts looking at the concern over the DPS system performance during peak season.

As the DPS system has struggled to stay online, there have probably been a lot of efforts behind the scenes to diagnose the source of the problems. While there are undoubtedly many reasons a computer system has technical issues, it appears that some on the government side have pointed a finger of blame at web bots, which automate the data entry interaction between TSPs and DPS.

There is one area where web bots probably did contribute to an increased server load on the DPS system, and that is the short fuse process. There was a large incentive to have web bots access the short fuse offer page frequently, to increase their odds of obtaining a short fuse shipment. However, SDDC has taken steps to minimize this impact, by limiting click counts to 50 hits per hour per TSP. That is less than one click per minute per TSP, which certainly shouldn’t cause any problems for the DPS system.

However, in addition to this limitation, SDDC has also limited all user accounts to a 200 click per hour maximum. That is one click every 18 seconds, on any and all pages in DPS. Additionally, we have heard that it is possible that  lower limits would be considered if the DPS system has further problems.

If the intent of these limitation is to minimize the effect of web bots, then it is a misguided attempt. With the exception of the short fuse situation, web bots are merely replicating what human users would be doing, except they are doing it more efficiently and spreading it out over a longer time frame than would be done by humans.

Daycos has used a web bot since the beginning of CWA, and we currently use one to interact with the invoicing/approvals tab of DPS. Our web bot is running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week retrieving and posting data from and to DPS. If it no longer is feasible to run our web bot, we will replace it with human beings, doing the same amount of  work. However, they will be doing it during the hours of 8-5, Monday through Friday, when  the DPS server load is probably the highest.

Additionally, we have programmed our web bot to skip unnecessary steps in navigating the DPS website. Since it is a computer program, it knows when and how to get from one page to another without always having to go back and starting from the beginning, like a human user is often forced to do. So if the Daycos web bot goes away, the DPS system will see more clicks during a shorter time frame from our users. This hardly seems like an effective way to increase capacity of the system.

The web bots are a completely logical reaction by the industry to the limitations of DPS, namely the lack of a two-way interface and the requirement to do a lot of data entry in a slow and unstable computer system. Hopefully, web bots will not shoulder the blame for the DPS system problems.

Do you think the government will further restrict the use of web bots? If so, what effect do you think this will have? Please use the comments below to share your opinion.

Related Posts

1. DPS System Problems: Click Count Limitations Are Threat to Human Users - June 9th, 2011
2. DPS System Problems: Omission of Two-Way Interface Continues to Plague DPS - June 3rd, 2011
3. DPS System Problems: Sink or Swim Without TOPS - May 27th, 2011