CampusM EU01 RCA April 3 2016

Introduction

This document serves as a Root Cause Analysis for the CampusM EU01 service interruption experienced by Ex Libris customers on April 3, 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

Root Cause Analysis

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

• A database server crash, caused by a misconfiguration of the Oracle Huge pages parameter.
• The misconfiguration caused a lack of available memory for the operating system, preventing from the server to be recovered.

Technical Action Items and Preventive Measures

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

• During the event, the application was updated to point to the VCS (Veritas Cluster) database setting, allowing a safe fallback in case of a database server crash.
• Following the event, the misconfiguration was fixed to allow the main database server to be restored and the VCS high availability to take effect. 
• Relevant procedure documents were reviewed and updated to verify the correct configuration is set.

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/