#37 - Section: 12307

Soon, it was January 15th.

Today was the day 12307 went live, allowing users to check train schedules, fares, availability, purchase tickets, and track delays on the website.

The story begins last month when the railway department officially announced that the national passenger railway lines would fully support online ticket purchases. Users could log in to 12307, the railway department's only official ticketing website, to buy tickets.

As soon as the news came out, netizens across the country cheered. Especially young people who worked away from home all year round spread the word, having waited so many years to finally be able to buy train tickets online, no longer needing to stand in long lines, and no longer worrying about not being able to buy a train ticket home.

From the media to public opinion, everyone praised the railway department's new thoughtful service and function. Many netizens commented online, "After waiting for so many years, our administrative departments have finally moved with the times."

A leader from the railway department said in an interview, "We rushed to launch this website before the end of the year because we hope our people can buy tickets more conveniently and go home for the New Year."

And as this leader said, with the Spring Festival holiday approaching, netizens across the country who were working away from home began to flock to the 12307 website to buy tickets home.

Now, the entire nation was paying attention and discussing it.

"It's almost nine o'clock, finally I can buy train tickets online."

"Who says otherwise? Standing in line takes a long time, and you're too embarrassed to ask too many questions, after all, there are so many people waiting behind you."

"Now it's great, after checking, you can buy train tickets!"

"Guys, it's about to start!"

"With my hand speed honed by twenty years of being single, I will definitely be able to buy a train ticket!"

"Twenty years of being single is nothing, I've been single for thirty years!"

At nine o'clock, the website went live on time.

It only took 10 seconds for it to lag.

After 30 seconds, most people were seeing network errors.

In less than a minute, the website displayed, "Too many users are currently accessing the site, please try again later."

At this time, all over the country, people encountered various problems during the 12307 website ticket purchase process, from not being able to enter the website to not being able to log in to the account, from constantly refreshing the remaining tickets to the order submission always failing, and even payment failures and repeated payments, triggering a wave of complaints from netizens.

Netizens began to discuss again.

"What kind of crappy website is 12307? I refreshed it ten times and still can't get in!"

"It's really trash. What's the point of launching this kind of trash? It's just a waste of my time."

"Damn it, I submitted the order for a few minutes, and now you're telling me the order submission failed!"

"Who's more miserable than me? I bought one ticket and was charged twice."

"Let's just honestly go stand in line."

"Remember to bring a tent, it's pretty cold now."

Yanjing Railway Bureau.

"Director, it's bad, it's bad!"

A man rushed into the director's office in a flurry.

"You're not steady at all, what kind of behavior is this to be so flustered?" the director scolded.

The secretary explained, "Our website has crashed."

The director stared blankly and said, "What, it crashed just a few minutes after it went live?"

The secretary explained, "Yes, there are too many users, hundreds of millions of users have flooded in, and our server simply can't handle it. Should we add some more servers?"

"That's all we can do," the director said helplessly.

The secretary left for a short while, then ran back again.

"Speak, what's the matter again?" the director said irritably.

"The front desk said someone wants to see you, saying they can help us solve the website crash problem," the secretary said.

The director said, "Who is coming?"

"I don't know, the leader is a young man," the secretary said.

The director was silent for a while and said, "Bring them in."

"Okay," the secretary said and left. Not long after, the secretary led two young men and a middle-aged man in. It was Lu Haifeng, Li Jun, and Huang Zhonghua.

The secretary introduced, "President Lu, this is our Director Cui, Cui Sheng. Director Cui, this is President Lu of Huaxing Technology, Lu Haifeng. These two are technical experts Li Jun and Huang Zhonghua."

Cui Sheng said, "Hello, please have a seat."

"Director Cui, I apologize for the intrusion," Lu Haifeng said politely.

"Not at all. I heard that President Lu can solve the problem of our website crashing. I wonder what the solution is?" Cui Sheng asked directly.

Lu Haifeng did not answer, but asked, "Does Director Cui know about cloud computing?"

"I know a little. You want to use cloud computing technology to solve the problem, so how much does this technology cost?"

"We don't charge. We'll give it to you for free," Lu Haifeng said seriously.

Cui Sheng asked, "What's your reason for doing this?"

Lu Haifeng said sincerely, "I just want to provide the people with more channels to check tickets. If Director Cui needs it, we can create a ticketing system for you for free."

After a long silence, Cui Sheng said with emotion, "It's truly an honor for our Daxia Country to have entrepreneurs like President Lu."

Lu Haifeng said politely, "Director Cui, you're too kind. I just want to do my part. After all, technology is meant to be used. Since we have the ability to help, we must do our part."

"Then I will thank you on behalf of the people of Daxia Country," Cui Sheng said with a smile.

"It's what I should do," Lu Haifeng replied.

In fact, the reason why Cui Sheng agreed so readily was because it did not involve user privacy, only providing inquiry services.

Cui Sheng led them to the office building on the third floor. Lu Haifeng said, "Lao Huang, Li Jun, I'll leave it to you two."

Huang Zhonghua and Li Jun nodded, sat down and started operating the computer. Others also gathered around.

Huang Zhonghua opened the official website of the Huaxing Data Center, entered Huaxing Cloud, and then stood up and said, "Write your source code and data on this web page."

The programmers looked at Cui Sheng, and Cui Sheng nodded.

Then a senior programmer began to copy the code and data. It only took an hour to write and upload it. After uploading, Huang Zhonghua said, "Okay, you can try it now."

Cui Sheng asked in surprise, "Is that it?"

"Yes, we have transferred the data to our Huaxing Data Center cloud server," Huang Zhonghua replied.

"Wow, it can really be accessed normally, and it's so smooth, it just can't buy train tickets," a programmer shouted loudly.

"Really, that's amazing, it was obviously still lagging just now," another echoed.

Cui Sheng tried it himself in disbelief, and it really became extremely smooth.