Hi Erich,

Duke is hosted by OCLC - I think we've been that way for quite a few years
- so we don't manage the server directly, but it's generally been stable.
There was one outage a few weeks ago, but I can't remember the last one
before then. I think your ILLiad manager is on the right track in thinking
that you may have an add-on issue (or multiple add-on issues.) Ours out of
the office so I can't confirm this, but I know for sure that we have three
plugins running - one for each of our two main consortia, and then a z39.50
search. You probably work with more consortia than Duke does, but still, 18
is a lot. It's very reasonable to audit that plugin list and start
strategically turning some of them off to try and find if you have any
misbehaving ones.

Best,
Erin Nettifee
Library Systems and Integration Support
Duke University Libraries





On Thu, Oct 3, 2024 at 11:53 AM Hammer, Erich F <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Dale,
>
> I added the scheduled restarts because we (there were several sysadmins
> before) were being asked to restart the System Manager almost every
> morning.  At first it was once a day at 6am (before anyone started
> working), but then, there were many days where it was needed again by the
> afternoon/evening.  IIRC, I changed it to every 8 hours, but there were
> still instances where I needed to manually restart in in between.  At this
> point, it is set to every 2 hours, and I am *still* asked once in a while
> to restart it.
>
> Maybe the ILLiad Manager too-quickly jumps to "needing" a restart of the
> System Manager as a troubleshooting solution?  I don't know.  It does often
> seem to resolve the issues though.
>
> Thanks,
> Erich
>
>
>
> On Thursday, October 3, 2024 at 10:33, Dale Poulter eloquently inscribed:
>
> > Erich,
> >
> > We have been running ILLiad for more than 10 years and it has been one of
> > our more stable systems.  The 18 plugins does seem to be rather large (we
> > have 4), but I do not think that would be the issue -- assuming these are
> > client side plugins and the issue is on the server.  May I ask what has
> caused
> > the need to restart the system manager frequently?
> >
> > -Dale
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Code for Libraries <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of
> > Hammer, Erich F
> > Sent: Thursday, October 3, 2024 9:00 AM
> > To: [log in to unmask]
> > Subject: [CODE4LIB] ILLiad stability?
> >
> > Howdy.
> >
> > Our ILLiad system seems rather unstable to me as compared with just about
> > everything else, and I'm trying to get a sense of whether that is common,
> > and/or if anyone has tricks/tips for stabilizing ILLiad.
> >
> > First, a disclaimer:  I don't know much about ILLiad.  I manage the
> Windows
> > server it runs on, and the OS and IIS are stable.  I upgrade ILLiad, but
> that is
> > close to the extent of my involvement.  The person who knows the most
> > about ILLiad (our "ILLiad Manager") is not a sysadmin, so they only work
> from
> > the interface/client side.  They don't have access to the back-end.
> >
> > Because I am not always available, we have set a scheduled task to
> restart
> > the ILLiad System Manager service every 2 hours (because every day wasn't
> > enough), and I am still called on every few days to restart it in
> between those
> > times as well.  Every couple weeks, I have to restart the ILLiad Rapid
> Manager
> > or the ILLiad Connection Manager services.  Our Illiad Manager has some
> > concerns that it might be related to the 18 addons they are using.  When
> I
> > poke through the (ILLiad and system) logs, I don't see anything that
> stands
> > out as a problem.
> >
> > So, I am wondering, is ILLiad really that unstable?  Is 18 addons
> > excessive? What are others' experiences with ILLiad and how to make it
> > more stable/robust?
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Erich
> >
> >
>