Well, in my last post I asked Santa for an online donation site 2.0. I have to tell you that I am very happy that it was not delivered. As every one knows, the Tsunami disaster has affected the entire world. ABC reported yesterday that almost 50% of all Americans have donated money to the victims of this terrible disaster. The American Red Cross has been one of the charities that has received the most traffic as a result.
We have been very busy working on upgrading the technology to ASP.Net with a Sonic Software back end processing system over the last year. It's been tough but the system is done. However, due to one technical issue bridging the .Net - JMS gap we had to take the system offline after only 1 week of processing. That gap was convienently in between the hurricanes in Florida and the Tsunami.
That left us with our 5 year old, traditional asp web app to mind the fort. The little engine that could. As if the bits knew they had only one shot left to prove their mite, the absolutely delivered. About half of the funds collected by the American Red Cross have been through this tough little site. If you would have asked me could they do it, could the bits stay strong long enough to keep pace with the largest outpouring of charitable giving in the history of the world...honestly I would have been very very skeptical.
I am happy to say that I my skepticism was way off. ODS 1.6, as its known to us, not only held its own it processed more transactions in 10 days than it did in 4 years. (This includes September 11th).
I can't release our numbers to the public without an official press release, which is way out of my job description. I just wanted to let the 2 or so folks who read this blog know that our little (not so little) ODS 1.6 kicked some serious butt.
Keep giving