Introduction

This document serves as a Root Cause Analysis for the Summon service interruption experienced by Ex Libris customers on May 6,2024.
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

Summon

Event Timeline

Service interruption was experienced by Ex Libris Summon customers during the following hours:

May 6, 2024 from  15:36 until 15:52 Seattle time

During the event, the services were unavailable.

Root Cause Analysis

Ex Libris engineers investigated this event to determine the root cause of this issue and concluded the following:

As part of a non-disruptive operation of a database upgrade, a race condition triggered a inside the search backend application, resulting in search services being unavailable for Summon customers.

Once the issue was identified, the operation was canceled and services restarted, leading to system recover.

Technical Action Items and Preventive Measures

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

1. The team is updating the Upgrade/Migration process to incorporate additional testing and safety measures

2. We are working with the R&D team to address the race condition in the application. 

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.