USPS API Changing?

[twinmoons]

I received an email this morning from USPS in regards to changes to their InterShipper API. I was wondering if this is going to affect the USPS shipping module. Below is the relevant excerpts from the email:

 

There are three primary structures of the new InterShipper architecture which will contribute to its reliability and performance;

 

1. The base-code is JAVA, allowing the system to run on virtually any platform which supports J2EE compliant JVMs  (JAVA Virtual Machines). This means InterShipper can be deployed on everything from a laptop to more recent mainframes.

 

2. The code architecture is Elite Class - this means that the Class and Method Models (which are the primary architecture of the JAVA code structure) are quite small. Elite Class design results in a very high degree of functional modularity, allowing us to more easily and quickly add, edit or modify the functions of the application and the data types which the application includes.

 

3. The rate table structures are highly optimized in both design and function, allowing us to contain, manage and utilize a high volume of information while still getting amazingly good system response times (very high speed performance regardless of function volumes).

 

Beyond these primary design attributes, our Presentation layer (on screen displays), communication/transportation layer (machine-to- machine interfaces) and our application to database layer (InterShipper to any ANSII SQL 92 standard database) are "Templatized", creating standard and re-useable interfaces between the InterShipper application and virtually any standard database). This attribute allows for ease and consistency of interfaces to and from the application, which yields reduced time and cost of development for us and any customers seeking their own look to the presentation or their own machine-to-machine communications with the application).

 

In summary, the new InterShipper can be deployed on virtually any machine, runs at extremely high speeds and interfaces to other systems with relative ease.

 

Rest assured that the current API accesses will continue to be functional through to the early part of next year, but we will be encouraging all users to migrate to the new platform as quickly as possible. The development team has also reported that it MAY be possible to convert the current APIs to automatically access the new platform. We'll report on this in the next update.