Primo MT AP01 - RCA - March 14 and 22, 2017

Introduction

This document serves as a Root Cause Analysis for the Primo  service interruption experienced by Ex Libris customers on March 14 and 22, 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  Primo MT AP01 instance at the  APAC Data Center during the following hours: 

March 14, 2017 from 10:44 AM until 12:25 PM  Singapore time zone.

March 22, 2017 from 10:20 AM until 10:32 AM   Singapore time zone.

March 22, 2017 from 11:06 AM until 11:16AM   Singapore time zone.

Event was identified by the 24x7 monitoring. 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:

The service interruption was a result of an application defect that is causing a significant impact on the search engines and get them to a state in which they are not able to function, they consume all the available hardware and become unavailable.

This defect is becoming evident when there is a significant load one the system, with conjunction to the hotswap.

We have also identified that a system configuration is preventing us from restoring the service quickly once a situation as the above occurs.

Technical Action Items and Preventive Measures

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

• We have implemented an emergency procedure that would allow us to mitigate the existing problem and reduce the recovery time
• We have moved to morning hotswap to start two hours earlier
• We are adding several code corrections in the next release – that will reduce the search engine impact and will correct the configuration setting in a way that will enable a quicker recovery

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