Legacy RefWorks - RCA - August 6, 2020

Introduction

This document serves as a Root Cause Analysis of the legacy RrefWorks service interruption experienced by Ex Libris customers on August 6th, 2020.

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

The legacy RefWorks website was unavailable and some customers experienced a service outage during the following hours:

August 6^th, 2020 from 7:00 AM until 6:20 PM UTC.
During the event, users at institutions with IP range login couldn’t log into legacy RefWorks by the IP range and the database search wasn’t working.

Root Cause Analysis

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

Due to a network error, the IP range login and the database search weren’t working.

Technical Action Items and Preventive Measures

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

• The cloud team solved the network issues and now all databases searches and login are operating normally.

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