Networks

At PKB, we rely on networks for use of our Application and APIs, working across public networks, like the internet, requires a focus on security and performance.

To establish connectivity to PKB services, please ensure the following is correct:

• You have access to DNS servers that can resolve domain names (e.g. my.patientsknowbest.com) to IP addresses

• Firewall rules in place to allow traffic on secure ports only such as HTTPS(443) and to the PKB service endpoints

• You have reviewed our documentation on which modern encryption algorithms can be used for secure communications with PKB Services

Occasionally, one or more of these links will break and connectivity will be lost.

This page will help you self-diagnose some of the more common problems that could be causing an issue.

What Should You Do When You Cannot Connect To a PKB Endpoint?

1. Check our status page to see if PKB is experiencing any issues.

2. If the status page is not showing any issues, then run through our checklist for sending organisations.

3. If all items on the checklist look OK and the issue still persists, then please raise an issue with us.

Could We Experience a Loss of Connectivity During a PKB Release Window?

This is possible, but it will depend on the APIs and endpoints you are using. Any connection issue experienced should last no more than 1 or 2 minutes.:

• Aggregated/upstream FHIR APIs and FHIR façade APIs should see no/little downtime as these run multiple instances with a rolling deployment strategy. It is, however, possible you might see a request time out or an error 500.

• HL7 APIs will return an error during this period; however, the standard replay configuration that organisations are expected to implement should ensure there is no loss of data being sent to patients.

• Legacy REST APIs will serve the error page over the API; this is the same page a user attempting to log in would see, informing them that a release is ongoing.

Releases are scheduled every two weeks and occur out of normal working hours, usually on a Wednesday.