Alma EU00 - RCA - October 2, 2017
Introduction
This document serves as a Root Cause Analysis for the Alma service interruption experienced by Ex Libris customers on October 2, 2017
The goal of this document is to share our findings regarding the event, specify the root cause analysis, outline actions to be taken to solve the downtime event, as well as preventive measures Ex Libris is taking to avoid similar cases in future.
Event Timeline
Service interruption was experienced by Ex Libris customers served by the Alma EU00 instance at the Europe Data Center during the following hours:
October 2, 2017 from 03:50 PM until 04:29 PM Amsterdam time.
During the event, the service was unavailable for the environment.
Root Cause Analysis
Ex Libris Engineers investigated this event to determine the root cause analysis with the following results:
A very rare and unique sequence of parallel database transactions, in conjunction with the current java settings, resulted in a system performance problem. This caused the system down, which required an application restart.
Technical Action Items and Preventive Measures
Ex Libris has taken the following action and preventive measures to avoid such an occurrence in future:
- Ex Libris engineers added another application node to the system, to better cope with the rare sequence of parallel transactions as encountered in this event.
- In parallel to the additional node, the development team is checking a different configuration of the java setting to be implemented in future releases, following a comprehensive QA cycle.
Customer Communication
ExLibris is committed to providing customers with prompt and ongoing updates during Cloud events. Ongoing and prompt updates on service interruptions appear in the system status portal at this address: http://status.exlibrisgroup.com/
These updates are automatically sent as emails to registered customers.
Publication History
Date | Publication History |
---|---|
October 17, 2017 | Initial publication |