Introduction

This document serves as a Root Cause Analysis for the service interruption experienced by Ex Libris customers on HEP AP02.

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.

Effected Products 

HEP AP02

Event Timeline

Service interruption was experienced by Ex Libris customers served by the Higher-Ed Platform AP02 instance at the Sydney Data Center at the following time frame:

From July 19, 2025 10:10 AM until July 21, 2025 11:10 AM Sydney time.

During this time frame, access to certain third-party services including SIP2 and Z39.50 protocols was disrupted, and a limited number of customers were affected by issues related to SSL certificate validation.

Root Cause Analysis

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

The root cause was identified as a firewall-level misconfiguration introduced during a planned maintenance activity that was intended to be non-impactful.

Once the issue was diagnosed, our engineering team resolved the misconfiguration and restored the full service.

Technical Action Items and Preventive Measures

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

• A manual verification procedure has been introduced to ensure SIP2 traffic integrity post-maintenance. 

• Log reviews are now a required step following any network or system changes that could impact SIP2 or related services. 

• Automated monitoring has been deployed to detect firewall-related anomalies more effectively. 

• Updated protocols have been documented and distributed to all relevant Hub and Network Engineering teams. 

Customer Communication

Ex Libris 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.