Following redesign, GAO’s public website goes down
The Government Accountability Office’s recently redesigned website went down for nearly an entire business day on Monday due to a data center issue, according to an agency spokesperson.
Host company Contegix informed GAO it was dealing with a problem at its data center in Reston, Virginia, and was working with its vendor to identify and resolve the cause, the spokesperson said.
The site went down around 9:30 a.m. EST and was “mostly” back online by 5:30 p.m. EST, the spokesperson said, though GAO had not yet received a report on the source of the problem.
The error message that displayed when trying to access GAO.gov as of 2:30 p.m. EST on Monday
At least one Twitter critic blamed GAO’s cloud migration.
Congress’ watchdog launched the redesigned site Feb. 13 to “better communicate and share the results of our work,” according to the GAO blog. The agency performs audits, evaluations and investigations of federal spending and agencies’ implementation of programs and policies — making recommendations for improvement valued at $214 billion in savings in fiscal 2019.
The site redesign — the first since 2011 — improved mobile-friendliness, navigation, search tools, the Integrated WatchBlog, and the database used to display key information.
While the site was down, users couldn’t access GAO’s reports and testimonies to Congress or the new “Find an Expert” feature connecting them with subject-matter experts at the agency.
