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Large Scale JIRA Administration

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Large Scale JIRA Administration at LinkedIn LinkedIn uses JIRA extensively to track over 500,000 issues across engineering, operations, help desks and more. They previously struggled with too many administrators causing unexpected changes. They worked with ServiceRocket to improve governance and upgrade processes. Key learnings included using custom screens and roles, tracking administrative changes in a "metatracker" project, and testing upgrades thoroughly in a staging environment. The document provides many best practices for large scale JIRA administration.

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Large Scale JIRA Administration David McCutcheon • LinkedIn Matt Doar • ServiceRocket
JIRA and LinkedIn SOME CONTEXT OUR JIRA JOURNEY Y O U R TA K E A W AY S
Behind the Scenes •  JIRA •  Git, Subversion •  Artifactory •  Ant, gradle •  Many local tools •  About 15 people
What do we use JIRA for? JIRA replaces email and spreadsheets •  Engineering issues bugs •  Operations tasks •  IT helpdesk, HR helpdesk, Accounts helpdesk … •  Purchasing •  Data recording for automated tests (starting)
“It’s corporate glue”
JIRA at LinkedIn SOME CONTEXT OUR JIRA JOURNEY Y O U R TA K E A W AY S
We have more than … •  500K issues •  1000 custom fields •  200 workflows •  And 10K LDAP users and groups ... who all want their JIRA their way
Too many administrators
Leads to unexpected changes •  Lots of changes to JIRA are requested •  More than we can handle •  For a while we gave out admin privileges like free candy •  That makes JIRA unstable
New features? It’s upgrade time!
Upgrades happen once a year •  JIRA is integrated with at least a dozen other systems, testing needs coordination •  Lots of email template changes exist •  There are many JavaScript snippets in field descriptions •  It’s hard work!
JIRA Spam
Email - a necessary evil •  People need to know about changes •  They want to know in minutes not hours •  But they can’t handle the volume anyway •  Neither can our mail server sometimes
We got help. •  Went to an Atlassian User Group •  Met people from ServiceRocket (aka CustomWare) •  They’re a local Atlassian Platinum Expert •  Matt Doar works for them and onsite for us
JIRA at LinkedIn SOME CONTEXT OUR JIRA JOURNEY Y O U R TA K E A W AY S
Growth Where do we go from here? •  Federated JIRA instances is the current plan •  Archiving would be even better since SOX prevents deleting issues •  Use schemes to make some older projects readonly or hidden •  Provide a simple set of scheme choices for project admins
TA K E AWAY S Growth Takeaways •  Create custom screens rather than using the default screen to avoid “surprise fields” •  Use custom issue type screens, since the default issue type scheme changes as new types are added •  Prefer roles over groups in schemes so you can delegate to project administrators
Governance Chaos grows with the number of administrators •  For any tool you need at least one admin plus a spare •  “Double digits denotes danger” •  JIRA’s project Administrator role is the way to go •  But set expectations to avoid frustrating project administrators
Make JIRA your metatracker
Large Scale JIRA Administration
What’s a metatracker? It’s where you track issues about the issue tracker •  Use a project to create issues for changes to JIRA •  Use a Kanban Agile board to track work •  Handle the small Tasks every day •  Larger requests can be Epic issues
Upgrading a large JIRA Lots of planning and testing •  Thoroughly prepare the list of tasks •  Testing is assigned to project leads and owners of other integrated systems •  Must upgrade in staging to be able to test •  Test issue create and edit, attachments, all status changes, searches, dashboards and all add-ons
That isn’t just for JIRA
TA K E AWAY S Upgrade Takeaways •  Document every file change for the next time •  Version control may be even more useful than automated deployment •  Use #include to minimize changes to standard email templates •  Avoid custom JavaScript in field configurations
Is Email even the right tool?
Outgoing Email [ J I R A ] ( S U M M I T- 1 2 3 ) Yo u h a v e m o r e t h i n g s t o d o … •  Monitor the length of the mail queue •  Some problems are due to long timeouts •  Some may be due to rate limiting at the mail server •  Best practice is to use authentication when sending but not always …
Incoming Email JIRA reading email from many people and apps •  Poll for email less often than once a minute if you have many aliases and a few mailboxes •  Tell people what JIRA expects in an email, e.g. Subject, From address •  With more than a dozen projects receiving email use the JEMH add-on instead
TA K E AWAY S Email Takeaways •  Use an email address dedicated to JIRA, with no people using it directly •  Regularly check the JIRA log for problems with contacting your email server •  Check for subscriptions to groups •  Check user has chosen to receive email about their own changes
A Few Good Ideas •  Use a subscription to find dodgy workflows: status != Closed and resolution is not empty •  Having a consistent way of naming JIRA schemes really makes maintenance much easier, e.g. “Project X : Bug : Create Screen” •  If an administration needs to be automated or fast, try Jamie Echlin’s Script Runner add-on first
TA K E AWAY We’re Nearly Done •  JIRA does 80% of what is wanted out of the box •  This leads to rapid success •  Getting the next 10% for an enterprise is more work, but is definitely possible
“It’s corporate glue”
Thank you! Matt Doar • matt.doar@servicerocket.com David McCutcheon • LinkedIn

More Related Content

Large Scale JIRA Administration

  • 1. Large Scale JIRA Administration David McCutcheon • LinkedIn Matt Doar • ServiceRocket
  • 2. JIRA and LinkedIn SOME CONTEXT OUR JIRA JOURNEY Y O U R TA K E A W AY S
  • 3. Behind the Scenes •  JIRA •  Git, Subversion •  Artifactory •  Ant, gradle •  Many local tools •  About 15 people
  • 4. What do we use JIRA for? JIRA replaces email and spreadsheets •  Engineering issues bugs •  Operations tasks •  IT helpdesk, HR helpdesk, Accounts helpdesk … •  Purchasing •  Data recording for automated tests (starting)
  • 6. JIRA at LinkedIn SOME CONTEXT OUR JIRA JOURNEY Y O U R TA K E A W AY S
  • 7. We have more than … •  500K issues •  1000 custom fields •  200 workflows •  And 10K LDAP users and groups ... who all want their JIRA their way
  • 9. Leads to unexpected changes •  Lots of changes to JIRA are requested •  More than we can handle •  For a while we gave out admin privileges like free candy •  That makes JIRA unstable
  • 10. New features? It’s upgrade time!
  • 11. Upgrades happen once a year •  JIRA is integrated with at least a dozen other systems, testing needs coordination •  Lots of email template changes exist •  There are many JavaScript snippets in field descriptions •  It’s hard work!
  • 13. Email - a necessary evil •  People need to know about changes •  They want to know in minutes not hours •  But they can’t handle the volume anyway •  Neither can our mail server sometimes
  • 14. We got help. •  Went to an Atlassian User Group •  Met people from ServiceRocket (aka CustomWare) •  They’re a local Atlassian Platinum Expert •  Matt Doar works for them and onsite for us
  • 15. JIRA at LinkedIn SOME CONTEXT OUR JIRA JOURNEY Y O U R TA K E A W AY S
  • 16. Growth Where do we go from here? •  Federated JIRA instances is the current plan •  Archiving would be even better since SOX prevents deleting issues •  Use schemes to make some older projects readonly or hidden •  Provide a simple set of scheme choices for project admins
  • 17. TA K E AWAY S Growth Takeaways •  Create custom screens rather than using the default screen to avoid “surprise fields” •  Use custom issue type screens, since the default issue type scheme changes as new types are added •  Prefer roles over groups in schemes so you can delegate to project administrators
  • 18. Governance Chaos grows with the number of administrators •  For any tool you need at least one admin plus a spare •  “Double digits denotes danger” •  JIRA’s project Administrator role is the way to go •  But set expectations to avoid frustrating project administrators
  • 21. What’s a metatracker? It’s where you track issues about the issue tracker •  Use a project to create issues for changes to JIRA •  Use a Kanban Agile board to track work •  Handle the small Tasks every day •  Larger requests can be Epic issues
  • 22. Upgrading a large JIRA Lots of planning and testing •  Thoroughly prepare the list of tasks •  Testing is assigned to project leads and owners of other integrated systems •  Must upgrade in staging to be able to test •  Test issue create and edit, attachments, all status changes, searches, dashboards and all add-ons
  • 23. That isn’t just for JIRA
  • 24. TA K E AWAY S Upgrade Takeaways •  Document every file change for the next time •  Version control may be even more useful than automated deployment •  Use #include to minimize changes to standard email templates •  Avoid custom JavaScript in field configurations
  • 25. Is Email even the right tool?
  • 26. Outgoing Email [ J I R A ] ( S U M M I T- 1 2 3 ) Yo u h a v e m o r e t h i n g s t o d o … •  Monitor the length of the mail queue •  Some problems are due to long timeouts •  Some may be due to rate limiting at the mail server •  Best practice is to use authentication when sending but not always …
  • 27. Incoming Email JIRA reading email from many people and apps •  Poll for email less often than once a minute if you have many aliases and a few mailboxes •  Tell people what JIRA expects in an email, e.g. Subject, From address •  With more than a dozen projects receiving email use the JEMH add-on instead
  • 28. TA K E AWAY S Email Takeaways •  Use an email address dedicated to JIRA, with no people using it directly •  Regularly check the JIRA log for problems with contacting your email server •  Check for subscriptions to groups •  Check user has chosen to receive email about their own changes
  • 29. A Few Good Ideas •  Use a subscription to find dodgy workflows: status != Closed and resolution is not empty •  Having a consistent way of naming JIRA schemes really makes maintenance much easier, e.g. “Project X : Bug : Create Screen” •  If an administration needs to be automated or fast, try Jamie Echlin’s Script Runner add-on first
  • 30. TA K E AWAY We’re Nearly Done •  JIRA does 80% of what is wanted out of the box •  This leads to rapid success •  Getting the next 10% for an enterprise is more work, but is definitely possible
  • 32. Thank you! Matt Doar • matt.doar@servicerocket.com David McCutcheon • LinkedIn