Following our previous updates, we can confirm that the planned maintenance is going ahead today as scheduled; from 18:00 (UK time) on Wednesday 11 June until 11:00 (UK time) on Monday 16 June.
We will be undertaking a significant amount of work during this maintenance period, including moving Apply, Track and other core systems to new Cloud architecture. This work will build on the lessons learnt last year, when we first moved our essential services into the Cloud, and will also ensure we take advantage of the latest Cloud functionality.
There has been an extensive period of testing undertaken in preparation for this maintenance, including testing of web-link to between 3-4 times the peak loads we experienced in 2013. This has been based on your feedback and the fact that you expect your systems usage to be in line with last year.
Everything we do over the next four days will help to ensure our systems are all fully resilient and capable of operating at peak capacity during Confirmation and Clearing this year. The period between now and then will allow all systems to bed in and we will repeat all of our performance testing again in July, although we do not anticipate this will require another system outage. We will notify you as soon as the systems are once again live, and our teams will be on hand to support you.
Please remember:
- Our Contact Centre will be closed during the period of maintenance, to enable us to undertake staff training.
- The last batch of paper copy forms were produced on Tuesday 10 June and was issued on Wednesday 11 June. Normal service will resume on Monday 16 June.
- The last batch of applicant letters will be sent on Wednesday 11 June, with normal service resuming on Tuesday 17 June.