Introduction

This document serves as a Root Cause Analysis for the  Primo service interruption experienced by Ex Libris customers on November 15, 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  Primo MT APAC01 instance at the APAC Data Center during the following hours: 

November 15, 2016 from 12:52 AM until 4:10 AM Singapore time zone.

The event was identified using the 24x7 monitoring and during the event the system was not available for two hours within the above timeline

Root Cause Analysis

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

While performing a continuous deployment in an attempt to fix a critical issue, an incorrect activity had been performed by an Ex Libris engineer and had caused the system unavailability.

Technical Action Items and Preventive Measures

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

Change management procedures have been reviewed and updated to minimize the option of performing invalid activities.

Continues deployment tools are being developed and updated to allow minimizing the possibility of human errors.

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