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Exhausting hours of waiting on the platform set up by the Ministry of the Environment, Italy is still too far from the “digital revolution”.

Some infallible optimists have triumphantly described it as “the dawn of a new day” or it has been presented by some politicians as “the country’s entry into modernity”. The click day to apply for the mobility bonus left us with a bitter taste in our mouths because if on the one hand some lucky people managed to get that small contribution for the purchase of an electric scooter or a pedal-assisted bike, on the other hand the hours of waiting and error messages on the platform disappointed us because they are the mirror of a country still too far behind, confused and unorganized.

What is the bonus?

The mobility voucher is a contribution equal to 60 percent of the expenditure incurred and, in any case, in an amount not exceeding € 500 for the purchase of “green” means of locomotion. By “green” means bicycles, including pedal-assisted bicycles, as well as vehicles for personal mobility with predominantly electric propulsion such as scooters, hoverboards and segways, or for the use of shared mobility services for individual use excluding those using cars.

The reimbursement takes place in two phases: in one, the citizen will be reimbursed 60% of the expense; in the second, on the other hand, it is the same citizen who pays the participating shopkeeper 40% directly and it will be the participating shopkeeper who will receive the 60% refund.

The click day

The long-awaited day to obtain the mobility bonus came last November 3 when citizens (luckier) were able to request it on the website
buonomobilita.it
. The virtual gates opened at 9.30 a.m. with the prospect of a numbered “waiting room” (always and strictly online). Unfortunately, however, at 9.55 a.m. there has already been the first hitch.

The first stop in the morning lasted about an hour, then the platform started working again, albeit in fits and starts, to the relief of the hundreds of thousands of users in the waiting room.

Shortly after 1 p.m., there were almost 600,000 people in the queue, with a ceiling that was still large, but also with a very long waiting list.

The Odyssey

The disruptions that frustrated the dozens of people connected were caused by the high number of connected users, with peaks in the morning of 300 to 600 thousand users in the queue.

The whole day, in fact, went on between crashes and problems also concerning the Spid, i.e. the public digital identity system, for example of Poste Italiane and Sielte.

In some cases, it was the Spid itself that caused the problems. Suffice it to say that throughout Italy there have been reports of malfunctions related to Spid provided by Poste Italiane (one of the main providers of the service).

In short, a real nightmare also reported by ADUC, the Association of the Rights of Users and Consumers, for all those who have already purchased or would like to buy a bicycle or an electric scooter.

Far from efficiency

In short, we understood that the click day was a real disaster. But what went wrong? Why is it so difficult to adapt our computer systems to the technologies of the twenty-first century? In this regard, it is worth mentioning that this is not the first click day that ends in tragedy. Sogei, the technological s.p.a. of the Ministry of Economy and Finance, clarifies in a note that “
The infrastructure dedicated to the service did not record any anomalies
.” The network provider, a few minutes before the opening of the dedicated site, detected abnormal traffic and knocked the company off the connection with the consequence that all the services provided were unreachable. “
Subsequently, the site was made available and the planned procedure for welcoming citizens in the virtual waiting room managed in the Cloud began
.”

Yet, making sure that these problems do not occur exists and we who deal with Cloud Computing as an effective and efficient business model know it well. Cloud Computing solutions have among the Scalability is the main features, and we can define scalability as a system capable of increasing and reducing its performance, resources and functionality according to the needs of those who require it.

Cloud & Sustainability

As you know, sustainability, efficient use of resources and smart mobility are topics that are particularly important to us and it is for this reason, perhaps, that many years ago the Cloud Evangelist Fabio Cecaro founded VMEngine, to combine the efficiency of Cloud technology with the idea of lasting sustainable development. Our philosophy has been embraced by the ITDM group and by our customers who prefer us every day for our professionalism but above all for our efficiency. Offering online services is not a game and it is not even, as some say, the future. Offering online services is a job and in 2020, doing it efficiently is also a must.