It seems that problems with busy period engineering affects the government as well as the private sector.
Canada Revenue Agency has had to extend the deadline for e-filing tax returns because its servers have had trouble keeping up with traffic loads this week. It is a scene reminiscent of Boxing Day blues for some Canadian retailers.
An announcement showed up on the CRA website yesterday, announcing an extension to May 6 – for e-Filers only (I am linking to a CBC News page because CRA’s home page is so bogged down, we don’t need to contribute to their trouble).
I was doing some business research on CRA’s website yesterday and noticed painfully slow response times. I’m waiting for someone to comment that CRA should blame their ISP for traffic shaping.
It certainly raises questions about CRA’s web architecture when even information pages can’t be reached.