AAMVAnet - A bottleneck?

Suppose you're a state motor vehicle agency. According to Real ID, you have to check people's social security numbers to renew a drivers license. You already need to check whether each person has points or revocations in other state databases. You might use the AAMVAnet network to make all these accesses. AAMVAnet will get perhaps ten or a hundred times its current traffic when all fifty states are using it to make all checks reauired by RFID. It's possible htis network will be beefed up in time, but it's a bottleneck right now, according to this story in the Decatur Daily by Eric Fleischauer.Some quotes:

Earnhardt said Friday's AAMVAnet problems were no surprise.

"As more and more states go through AAMVAnet, it hasn't been able to handle the volume," she said.

AAMVAnet is the conduit most states use to access various databases involved in driver license applications and renewals. Alabama uses the service for commercial driver license information, problem-driver point systems and Social Security number verification.

The article discusses a period when no drivers could be served at all because access to AAMVAnet was down.

Morgan County License Commissioner Sue Baker Roan could do nothing about the computer glitch that brought her office to a halt, so she busied herself handing out coffee and soft drinks to generally understanding applicants.

"It just makes you sick," Roan said. "We try so hard to give good service, and then something like this happens. It's hard on the public, and it's stressful for all of us."