CockroachDB troubleshooting series… define the process

After working with customers for about 18 months now, I am starting a blog series to write up the common issues seen while running CockroachDB. Diagnosis and treatment of issues when running on distributed database architectures like CockroachDB, closely mirror the process used in the medical community.

There are observed symptoms which leads to a diagnosis and finally a treatment to resolve the condition. Good troubleshooting methodology can help frame the problem which leads to better overall outcomes. This process is outlined below:

• Symptoms
  • Description of problem
  • Observations
• Diagnosis
  • Drill down on the symptoms
  • Tools and techniques
  • Correlation of observations to formulate a treatment
• Treatment
  • Multiple treatment options
  • Define steps to resolve
    • Do X and observe Y
    • Do K and observe LMNOP

A summary of all topics, tools, techniques will be kept in a github troubleshooting repository. To be as instructive as possible, steps to reproduce and observe these issues will be included as well. If you need help to diagnose or resolve issues with CockroachDB, please reach out to our support resources.