First postmortem
Eric
Posted on April 8, 2024
Issue Summary:
Duration: April 5, 2024, 10:00 AM to April 6, 2024, 2:00 AM (UTC)
Impact: Like a magician's disappearing act, our cloud storage service decided to vanish for a brief period, leaving approximately 30% of our users scratching their heads.
Root Cause: Turns out, our database connection pool took a vacation without telling anyone, leading to a bottleneck of epic proportions.
Timeline:
10:00 AM: Monitoring alerts started going off like fireworks on New Year's Eve, signaling trouble in database paradise.
10:15 AM: The engineering team jumped into action faster than a superhero hearing the distress call.
10:30 AM: Initial assumption: Maybe the internet got too excited and decided to bombard us with traffic.
11:00 AM: We delved deep into the database logs, only to find a swarm of connections clogging up the pipes.
12:00 PM: Like detectives in a crime scene, we searched high and low for connection leaks in our application code but came up empty-handed.
2:00 PM: Suspicions turned towards the database itself; perhaps it was just feeling a little too popular.
4:00 PM: Lo and behold! We stumbled upon the misconfigured connection pool, hiding in plain sight like Waldo in a crowd.
6:00 PM: With the situation spiraling faster than a rollercoaster, we called in reinforcements from the senior engineering and operations teams.
10:00 PM: In a desperate attempt to appease the database gods, we tweaked the connection pool settings as a temporary fix.
2:00 AM: Victory! With the connection pool optimized and the database back to its cheerful self, we celebrated like it was New Year's Eve.
Root Cause and Resolution:
Root Cause: The misconfigured connection pool in our database settings decided to play a game of hide-and-seek, causing a bottleneck in connection availability.
Resolution: By adjusting the connection pool settings to match the actual demand, we freed the database from its self-imposed solitary confinement and restored service to its former glory.
Corrective and Preventative Measures:
Improvements/Fixes:
Implement automated monitoring to catch database tantrums before they escalate.
Conduct regular audits of database configurations to ensure they're not off gallivanting on their own adventures.
Tasks to Address the Issue:
Patch up those connection pool settings across all database instances to prevent future disappearing acts.
Develop automated testing procedures to sniff out misconfigurations before they wreak havoc.
Create a database configuration guide so even the newest member of the team won't accidentally summon a database apocalypse.
Conclusion:
In the tale of the Great Database Disappearance of April 5th, 2024, the heroes of the engineering team prevailed against the mischievous misconfiguration lurking in the shadows. With lessons learned and preventative measures in place, we stand ready to face whatever database shenanigans the future may hold.
Posted on April 8, 2024
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