AES Broadcast  09/24/2007          Broadcast  #  2007027

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 Extended Automated Export System (AES) Maintenance Outages

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 The AES Education Region will undergo an extended outage for 10 hours
         beginning at 12:00 PM Eastern Standard Time (EST) Friday,  October 5, 2007. 
         The region will be restored by 10:00 PM EST Friday, October 5, 2007. 

 The AES Production Region will undergo an extended outage for 33 hours
         beginning at 3:00 AM EST Saturday, October 27, 2007.  The region will 
         be restored by 12:00 PM EST Sunday, October 28, 2007.

 During these outages, incoming AES shipments will be stored in a queue 
         and once the regions are restored processing will continue and 
         messages will be returned to the filers.  We strongly encourage you to 
         file your shipments prior to these extended outages when possible. 

 The AES Development Team will be conducting maintenance to update the 
         processing of consignee data to accommodate the large number of 
         duplicate records reported by AES filers.  These changes will improve 
         the overall performance of the AES.

 AES Filers may submit Non-Licensed shipments under the AES Downtime 
         Policy during the AES Production Region outage.  Licensed shipments 
         must be held until the system is restored and an AES Internal 
         Transaction Number (ITN) is received.  Once the AES Production Region 
         is restored all AES transactions for shipments that moved under the 
         AES Downtime Policy must be filed along with any new AES transactions.

 If you utilize the AES Downtime Policy for export, please contact the 
         port where you will export from.

 Please see the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) web site for 
         further information on the AES Downtime Policy:

 http://www.cbp.gov/linkhandler/cgov/export/aes/tech_docs/aestir/june04_intro/june04_downtime_guide.ctt/june04_downtime_guide.doc
       

 For further information or questions, contact the U.S. Census Bureau's 
         AES Branch at 1-800-549-0595, menu option 1 or at askaes@census.gov.