Automate cloning of production instance to dev instance

Software Licenses Virtamed

Hi there,

 

in order to be able to quickly test stuff in a dev environment we would like to be able to script the creation of a dev instance.

Anybody having experience with it?

The plan would be to have one / a couple scripts to do that with least possible effort.

I would use some VM orchestration tool to clone the VM. Then assign a new hostname, changed base URIs, disable / change email notifications.

Apply dev licenses of Jira and Plugins, I think we need to?

 

Same I would like to do with the Confluence instance.

 

Thanks

David

Daniel Ebers

Hi David,
you mentioned the relevant parts that you need to consider when writing a script that clones your production environment and adapts several settings afterwards - making it a "test system"/"non-production"-environment.

There are a few steps worth considering additionally, like you said, disabling the sending of mails from the non-production environment is a very good idea and, if you like to, you could adjust the colors and the announcement banner so everyone can see easily that it is a non-production site.
Applying developer licenses can be easily automated during this process, too.

All those steps could be put into a script that will apply all necessary changes to your non-production environment before you start Jira the first time after a copy over.

You could use tools provided you already know - I also heard of some admins who automate the process using Apps. I haven't tried it with Apps, though.

The doing is quite easy. Keeping both environments in sync - as well as the database is not an issue. The process itself can be complicated, though.
When cloning only by request there is a risk that users will consider the non-production environment not as "non-production" forever and start asking where their precious data is gone suddenly (simply forgetting about the non-production status after a while).
When cloning using a defined schedule (for example every Monday morning) the time frame might be too short for users to finish complex tests or ideas they want to deploy on non-production.

Cheers,
Daniel