Introduction

This document serves as a Root Cause Analysis for the Alma service interruption experienced by Ex Libris customers on  May 16, 2018

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

Intermediate service interruptions were experienced by Ex Libris customers served by the Alma EU02 instance at our European Data Center during the following time period:

May 16, 2017 from 6:07 PM until 6:14 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:

Extreme load on the database combined with a routine backup activity, that took longer than usual, caused the environment to be unresponsive for few minutes.
Since backup is an important activity that happens on an ongoing basis multiple times every day, Ex Libris cloud engineers monitored the environment closely afterwards to ensure there is no specific problem with the backup.

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 cloud engineers monitored the environment closely during backup times, to ensure there is no problem with the backup.

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