Introduction

This document serves as a Root Cause Analysis for the Alma service interruption experienced by Ex Libris customers on Kuly 13, 2016

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 NA02 instance at the North America Data Center during the following hours: 

July 13, 2016 from 8:28AM until 9:28AM  Chicago time zone

During the event, the service was slow and at times unresponsive.

Root Cause Analysis

Ex Libris Engineers investigated this event to determine the root cause analysis with the following results:

The problem was related to the semi-annual re-indexing described in July release notes.

An optimization process was run as part of the semi-annual re-indexing process. Although the indexing takes place only at night to avoid any interruption of the optimization process, it continued into the early working hours, creating a heavy load on the system. After analyzing the situation, we decided that the optimization process was not required and removed it permanently from the semi-annual re-indexing process. The re-indexing was resumed without further issues.

Technical Action Items and Preventive Measures

Ex Libris has taken the following action and preventive measures to avoid such an occurrence in future:

• It has been decided that the optimization process will be permanently removed from the semi-yearly re-indexing.

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/