The Bloodbath of July 29, 2016
I am writing this so that people will not forget what happened on this day. I shall try to narrate the recent events to the best of my ability and knowledge.
July 29, 2016. For most of us it is an uneventful day. Yet for those in UPLB, it was the day of the online registration — the same online registration that has earned the nickname of “Hunger Games” because of it’s every man for himself nature. It is also the day when a large portion of the student body will get their first taste of the using the Student Academic Information System (SAIS), the replacement for the university’s now defunct registration system, SystemOne.
Background
For years, UPLB has relied on SystemOne for its online registration needs. While it was not perfect, it did it’s job reliably and online registration was a relatively peaceful affair. Last semester, the latest version SystemOne::Reborn (shown below), was deployed, leading to one of the smoothest online registrations in recent memory.
For this coming semester’s registration however, it was decided that SystemOne will be replaced with the eUP Project’s Student Academic Information System, more commonly known as SAIS. The eUP Project aims to “to integrate, harmonize, and interoperate Information and Communication Technology (ICT) systems and infrastructure across all constituent universities (CUs) of the UP System”.
Unlike previous online registrations, students were assigned a day on which they will use the system to enlist subjects based on scholastic standing. Graduating students were to enlist on July 28, regular students on July 29, and irregular students on July 31. Registration would begin at 12:00 AM on each of these days.
12:00AM July 28, 2016: The Calm Before the Storm
A few hours before the start of online registration for graduating students, people were anxious wondering if the system was capable of handling the traffic that is expected of online enlistment in UPLB. Luckily it did not crash; however, there was noticeable lag. This led to questions of whether SAIS could handle the deluge of students in the following day. The reasoning was if the system lagged when used by the small number of graduating students, how can it be possibly handle the larger numbers of regular students?
9:00 PM July 28, 2016: The Storm Begins
It was now the turn of the regular students who comprised a large fraction of the population. Three hours before the start of registration, students began noticing that the SAIS servers were going down randomly. Some began to doubt whether the registration would go forward as planned. A few students found some humor in the situation, flooding Facebook and Twitter with memes and jokes.
12:01 AM July 29, 2016: Server Down
When the time came for online registration students found themselves unable to access the system. With the system down, students were left wondering about what is happening and frustrated that a PHP 700 million system could not handle the loads that SystemOne could in semesters past.
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The university student council monitored the situation, trying to get in contact with the UPLB administration. The SAIS Facebook group was flooded with questions from students.
2:00 AM: SAIS Team Speaks
After two hours of silence, a message was posted on the SAIS Facebook group by the team handling SAIS at UPLB:
For those asking, SAIS will be back up tomorrow morning or rather later in the morning as it is 2:00am already. The Team is working on SAIS.Thank you and I apologize for the late announcement. I also apologize for keeping you all up at this hour. The estimated time is at 9:00 am. Will keep you posted.
Upon seeing this, alot of people decided to go to sleep, having become tired of waiting for two hours past midnight.
3:00 AM-6:00 AM: SAIS Back Up
With a lot of the students deciding to go to sleep assuming that SAIS will be up at 9:00 AM, the load on the SAIS server was heavily decreased. As a result, those who decided to stay up managed to log in and secure slots for themselves.
9:00 AM: Panic and Rage
Those who went to sleep woke up learning that some students managed to enroll while they were asleep. This leads to students feeling betrayed by the SAIS team since they went to bed assuming that SAIS would be back up at 9:00 AM, not earlier. The University Student Council proposed this solution to what happened:
ANNOUNCEMENT: The University Student Council has decided to forward all concerns directly to the office of Chancellor Sanchez. The current proposal of the USC is that a full reversion of slots be done and SystemOne take the place of SAIS for registration use. This is due to the disunity created among the student body due to misinformation regarding SAIS after an announcement was made stating that it would be taken offline, also in consideration for those with false holds in their SAIS accounts unfairly preventing them from completing their registration.
Sir Rommel Bulalacao has confirmed that it is ready for use and needs at least a day to process and upload data from the OUR. Given this, we demand that the University delay the registration period and give the registration team and students enough time to prepare for registration and ensure that this failure will not happen again. We strongly urge every UPLB student to join us in forwarding our complaint to the administration. We will gather at the Hum Steps at 10:30AM.
This leads to a division in the community. If the USC were to have their way, all that happened would be undone and those who managed to get slots during the night would lose it. Naturally, those who already enlisted didn’t want to lose the slots they secured while those with still no subjects enlisted wanted a reversal.
Current Status
As of the time of writing the following email has been sent to students by the UPLB SAIS Team:
Please be advised that access to the Student Academic Information System (SAIS) and online enlistment of courses will resume on July 30, 2016 (Saturday). All courses/schedules which were finalized online are confirmed slots. Those who already settled the matriculation fees are considered officially registered.
