DDC online portal available

October 17th, 2024 by Matt Tuckey

UPDATED BELOW: DDC’s online portal is now fully functioning. Thank you for your patience and we apologise for any inconvenience.

DDC’s online portal is currently unavailable due to a network issue at the datacentre where servers are located. This is affecting all organisations with servers located at the same site, as it relates to the firewall protecting the datacentre. The UK based datacentre have a Technical Support Team on site and are investigating the issue as a top priority.

The DDC Customer Service Team are also affected by this issue and are unable to provide full support to those calling or emailing. All phones lines and email systems are operational.

We apologise for any inconvenience and thank you for your patience.

Please keep checking the portal as we hope this will be online soon. We will update this article as more information or progress reports are provided.

09:30 – datacentre advises that additional technical teams are on-site trying to resolve the firewall issues.

10:15 – we’ve had a call with the datacentre for an update on their resolution timeframes. At current they are still working hard to resolve but are unable to give a timeframe.

11:30 – we are still in contact with the datacentre, and they are addressing the remaining issues, to get the systems back available as quickly as possible.

13:00 – the datacentre have now confirmed that the issue is related to a hardware fault, which they are currently replacing. They are still unable to give an estimation on the time this will take, however we are holding regular calls to confirm progress.

15:00 – the datacentre have implemented some ‘work arounds’ within the site and will start to bring affected clients back online. As yet we do not have a timeframe, however we have advised that this will most likely be tomorrow (18/10/2024). We are pushing for a more precise timeframe.

17:00 – we have been advised that replacement parts will be arriving at the datacentre, via courier, first thing in the morning. They are still working on a failover solution to be implemented before this happens, and will update us throughout the night with progress.

18/10/2024

06:00 – we have received outgoing messages and status reports from the server but are currently unable to gain incoming access, through the firewall.

08:00 – the datacentre has advised that they have been working overnight and have workarounds available for the firewall. We have scheduled a call to confirm the technical changes that we would need to regain access and bring services back online.

09:45 – we now have access to our server, through a restricted channel and are conducting further tests, to ensure there are no further security implications to making the client portal available. We are hoping that this workaround proves stable and secure.

10:00 – services are now coming back online under a temporary configuration. This will allow clients and applicants to complete all steps through the portal. At current eBulk submissions for standard and enhanced DBs checks will not be sent to the DBS, due to the security changes made. DDC are in contact with the DBS to change some settings to bring this service back online shortly.

13:00 – we are currently live with services and can process all check types, and support clients and applicants. Remaining elements which are not yet available, include the connection the DBS for standard/enhanced checks and DDC ID tools which allow digital identity to be submitted.

14:15 – ‘DDC ID’ digital identity app is now fully functional