What do the London Olympics of 2012, the U.S. health exchanges today, and a Victoria Secret online fashion show during the Super Ball all have in common? Their web sites and web applications failed miserably under real world user interaction.

The result is site downtime, embarrassment, loss of revenue, and unwanted negative publicity. Why do web sites fail when it is usually vitally important that they remain operational and responsive to users?

This whitepaper offers insights into why these failures occur and what the cost is to the organization. It describes five practices that enable all organizations to better prepare for traffic in response to new applications or marketing initiatives.