Primo TC APAC02 RCA July 22 2015

Introduction

This document serves as a Root Cause Analysis for the Primo service interruption experienced by Ex Libris customers on July 22, 2015.

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 TC APAC02 instance at the APAC Data Center during the following hours: 

July 22, 2015 from 06:50 AM until 07:19 AM Singapore 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:

An unexpected load on search engines and on the Front Ends took place. The extensive load on the system elements caused slowness and in extreme cases caused the system to build a high queue that prevented it entirely from operating.

Technical Action Items and Preventive Measures

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

• Once identified, a restart of the front engines took place – which has resolved the issue immediately.
• ExLibris monitoring had been enhanced to be able to identify possible load increases in order to prevent an impact on service.
• Code enhancements are being developed by Ex Libris to prevent such a phenomena.

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/