Ross Philo, CIO, U.S. Postal Service

Q: The Postal Service has made many product and service advancements that include sophisticated online mailing tools for businesses and automated postal centers. What is the biggest IT challenge to maintaining that online infrastructure?

A: " The biggest challenges to maintaining the U.S. Postal Service's online infrastructure is its size and the ever-increasing number of visitors who go to the USPS Web site to access its many products and services. These are challenges we are more than happy to have. The Postal Service has had an online presence since 1994. Since 1998, we have launched a number of applications to better serve our customers in an electronic environment, and as a result, the USPS Web site has grown between 18% and 22% annually. The IT group manages the increased demand on our infrastructure by analyzing growth-rate trends, infrastructure changes and planned events such as ad campaigns and so on. The analysis provides us with the information we need to adjust capacity on a continuous basis and make necessary changes to avoid disruption of service. We have utilized the trend analysis process since 2003 to estimate our growth each year, and we have met the peak demand of our customers. Maintaining performance and staying ahead of demand are key to our online presence. "

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