Root Cause Analysis (RCA) Overview

Riya Ray
Riya Ray
  • Updated

Published Date: May 13, 2025

Validated: Yes

Audience: Everyone

Products and Versions Covered:

  • Cloud/CVC
  • Self-hosted, Replicated - KOTS
  • Jama Connect® 

Summary

A Root Cause Analysis (RCA) is a structured investigation conducted after an issue has been resolved or temporarily mitigated. A separate ticket is created specifically to document and analyze the RCA.

An RCA identifies the underlying cause of a production outage and provides recommendations to prevent recurrence.

 

RCA Prerequisites

  • Customers may request an RCA only for a Severity 1 Production Outage.

  • A Production Outage (Severity 1) ticket must be created during the outage.

  • The customer must explicitly request an RCA.

Required Information

Support cannot complete an RCA without sufficient context and data. Customers must provide:

  • A clear and detailed description of the issue

  • Relevant logs and/or screenshots

  • Thread dumps captured during performance-related incidents

  • A brief timeline outlining when the issue occurred and key events

Customer Engagement

  • The customer must actively collaborate with Support.

  • Timely responses to information requests are required.

  • If engagement stops, Support will document findings available at that point and close the ticket after notification.

Customer-Requested RCA

Customers may request an RCA only for a Severity 1 Production Outage.

Important expectations:

  • Submission of an RCA request does not guarantee that one will be performed.

  • Determining a definitive root cause is not always possible.

  • An RCA ticket may remain open for several months, depending on complexity.

  • Communication typically occurs monthly through the dedicated RCA ticket.

  • The original SEV1 ticket will be closed.

  • A new ticket will be created specifically for the RCA investigation.

Support will investigate, document findings, and share recommendations where applicable.

Resolution

The RCA Process

RCA investigations differ from standard support cases and do not follow standard SLA response timelines.

RCA tickets are of lower priority than active production issues because the incident has already occurred.

Whenever possible, Support follows these structured steps:

1. Investigate

  • Collect logs, system data, and configuration information

  • Analyze events leading up to the issue

  • Reproduce the problem if feasible

  • Identify potential failure points

2. Report

  • Document findings

  • File a defect or bug report if applicable

  • Provide detailed technical analysis to relevant teams

3. Recommend

  • Provide mitigation steps

  • Recommend configuration improvements

  • Suggest process changes or upgrades

  • Outline preventive measures to reduce recurrence

Additional Resources

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