When introduced eighteen months ago no one anticipated its overwhelming popularity. At any given time, there are over 4,000 simultaneous users of web mail. The present version of Web Mail was not designed for this level of activity. A more robust version is now available, and the upgrade installation is scheduled during the December break. This new email system, which uses the NetID as the login ID, will replace the present email system in January.
Email continues to grow rapidly for many reasons.
Some departments are getting out of departmental email systems and moving back to DII's centrally administered email systems. Systems with the newer technology, such as SIMS, can efficiently accommodate the use of email as a form of mass communication. With the present email system, when a message is sent to 20,000 people, there are 20,000 copies of it. SIMS will keep only one copy on the system when a message is sent to 20,000 people. This saves both disk space and processing time.