This spring, Procountor's services will be transferred to Microsoft Azure's public cloud data centers. This transfer requires a longer than usual, weekend-long maintenance break.
In this article, you will find questions and answers about the transfer.
1. What is the maintenance break related to?
The maintenance break is related to Procountor's migration to the public cloud. We will move Procountor's services from private cloud data centers in Finland to Microsoft Azure data centers in Europe. Extensive testing will be carried out to ensure the functionality of the services.
We have been preparing for this transition for several years, and many back-end services have already been moved to the Azure public cloud. The spring maintenance break is the final phase of this migration, during which the remaining services will be transferred to Azure.
2. When is the maintenance break and how long does it last?
The maintenance break will occur during week 20, starting on Friday evening and ending on Sunday. Specifically, it will begin on Friday, May 16 at 23:00 and end on Sunday, May 18 at 24:00 (UTC+3).
We apologize for any inconvenience caused by this service break.
3. Which services or functions are affected by the maintenance break?
During the maintenance break, Procountor programs (including Procountor, Procountor Solo, and Procountor's mobile application), their APIs, and other external connections will be unavailable.
4. How will this migration to Microsoft Azure benefit me as a customer?
Migrating to the public cloud offers significant benefits for both service providers and users. Large global companies, like Microsoft, invest heavily in cybersecurity, ensuring better security and reliability compared to individual data center operators.
The public cloud supports DevOps-type product development, speeding up the introduction of new services and improvements. This means faster access to new features and enhancements for you.
Additionally, the public cloud's flexibility allows for scalable capacity, ensuring sufficient performance as needed. The architecture of the public cloud makes services more resilient, often recovering from technical failures quickly and invisibly to users.
5. Is there anything I need to do before or during the maintenance break?
Most Procountor users do not need to take any special measures. However, because the software will be unavailable during the outage, you may need to complete any schedule-critical tasks before the break.
The transition to the public cloud will be unnoticeable for most users, except for the maintenance break. There will be no changes in the use of Procountor software, aside from the benefits mentioned above, including improved fault tolerance and faster product updates.
If you have configurations related to the DNS Name Service and IP addresses, special action may be required. For example, if your company's IT manager has configured firewalls using IP addresses, note that these IP addresses will change during the service interruption. The name addresses of the services will remain the same.
6. How do I ensure the transition to the public cloud will affect my use of Procountor?
Generally, the transition and change of IP addresses do not require any measures. If configurations have been made according to recommendations, they should not use IP addresses, and therefore no changes are needed.
If your company's IT manager or another party has made configurations related to your firewall that may be affected by changes in Procountor's IP addresses, please contact them directly. You can also direct them to this page for the most up-to-date information about the maintenance break and its schedules.
If your company does not have an IT manager or IT services have not been outsourced, it is likely that the Azure migration does not require any action from you.
7. What happens if the maintenance break lasts longer than expected?
We have planned for comprehensive testing and error investigation within the maintenance break timeframe to minimize the risk of prolongation. However, if the maintenance break lasts longer than expected, we will inform you primarily on our Disruption Notices page and, if necessary, on our social media channels.
8. How can I contact support during the maintenance break?
The maintenance break will not affect our customer service schedules and availability. We will serve as usual on Friday before the maintenance break and will process any contacts received during the weekend from Monday onwards.
9. I am responsible for software connected to Procountor. How do I stay up to date with an outage?
The main impact on Procountor's integrations is the upcoming service interruption, which will affect the Procountor interfaces. The service break is from Fri, May 16 at 23:00 to Sun, May 18 at 24:00 (UTC+3).
We send newsletters to our software partners and Procountor API developers before the maintenance break, including confirmed timelines for the public cloud migration. Procountor users will also receive notifications in the user interface.
After the maintenance break, Procountor and its APIs will be located in the public cloud.
Changes in Addresses
- The IP addresses in the service's DNS name service will change.
- The public name addresses of the test server (PTS) will change to:
- Procountor API: pts-api.procountor.com
- Vaadin: pts-secure.procountor.com
- (No changes: In-production title addresses will remain: secure.procountor.com & api.procountor.com)
Generally, the change of IP addresses does not require any action, except during the service interruption. If Procountor connections have been built according to our instructions, they do not use IP addresses to establish the connection.
For Procountor's SFTP connection, the public IP address changed in August 2024. We informed our software business partners with separate releases and recommended using ftp.procountor.com (instead of an IP address) to connect in the future.