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US & UK Platforms - Disruption - 9 November 2026

Platform Modernisation: New Application Servers

Summary

On Monday 9 November 2026, some users of the US Platform (us.businessoptix.com) and the UK Platform (uk.businessoptix.com) saw errors on certain library pages and the index: US from approximately 18:54 to 19:13 UTC (13:54-14:13 ET), and UK from 19:07 to 19:25 UTC. Users saw the message "Unable to obtain DNS hostname of Active Directory domain controller…". This happened while we were bringing new application servers online alongside the existing production servers. As the new servers joined the platform's internal directory, the existing servers began trying to locate them before they were fully registered, and pages relying on that lookup returned an error. Other areas of the platform remained available. No data was affected. 

Impact

  • Scope: US Platform and UK Platform. Pages that depend on the platform's internal directory lookup were affected; other areas of the platform remained available.
  • Symptom: Affected pages returned the error *Unable to obtain DNS hostname of Active Directory domain controller…".
  • Window: US: approximately 18:54-19:13 UTC (13:54-14:13 ET). UK: approximately 19:07–19:25 UTC.
  • Data: No data was lost or affected. Databases, libraries and customer content were not changed. 

Why we were making changes

These activities are part of our ongoing platform modernisation programme, already completed in our EU, Australia and other regions. They replace servers running older operating systems with ones that run the latest Windows Server and .NET releases, with a hardened security baseline (TLS 1.2/1.3 only, with next-generation key exchange, including preparation for post-quantum readiness) and additional infrastructure-level protections.

The new servers also lay the foundation for running with even higher availability, allowing us to carry out maintenance with little to no impact on users in the future, also adding a further layer of resilience.

Cause

The new servers are built alongside the live ones so customers can be moved across with minimal disruption. On this occasion one step of that build affected the live servers, which it should not have, and we have changed our process so it can't recur. 

Resolution

We corrected the network configuration on the existing production server so it could locate the new server, and service was restored immediately following that intervention.

What we've changed

  • Additional mandatory checks are now in place before any new server joins the platform's directory.

  • This step is now treated as a production change and carried out only in a low-traffic window for the region.

  • Switching customers over to the new servers will be communicated in advance.

Looking ahead: planned maintenance communications

We are also introducing a planned maintenance and infrastructure schedule, published in a similar way to our product release cycle. It will set out expected maintenance windows and the high-level plan for modernisation and upgrade activity across the year, and will be updated whenever planned maintenance is added.

No further action is required by users. BusinessOptix apologises for the disruption.