Regular re-start of Jira & Confluence

Question

Aloha

We are intensive users of JIRA & Confluence and soon Bamboo, we have around 250 users.

I have noticed that performance and frequency of errors (SSL, Index, class crashes) are slowly but steadily increasing. And if there is an issue we often end up re-starting anyway.

Does it make any sense to have a regular re-boot/re-start of servers?

The last time we stayed up around 30 days - with issues mounting up as described above.

What kind of maintenance/re-starting schedule-strategy (in comparable user scenario) are you applying?

Thanks

c.

Mirek · Answer

As I mentioned already.. try to avoid not needed restarts. I do not recommend it as a practice of maintenance. Nic bring up one of the reasons why it is not a good practice.

Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Answer

I would not recommend a restart at all.  You should really be investigating why there are problems and fixing the root cause.  I would recommend a regular maintenance cycle - i.e. upgrading, and restarting during that.

A number of my clients do have regular restarts in place, but in most cases, they have discovered that all they're doing is hiding a deep rooted problem.  It's a bit like plastering over the cracks in the wall at home, only to realise too late that you've got a subsidence problem.

Frequency of restarts depends on how often you're having the issue.  As a temporary measure, establish when faults are occurring and simply schedule something a little more frequent.  Then you can investigate your real issue.

Christopher Led · Answer

Hey Mirek

I do understand your view-point. But my question is rather, has anybody such a schedule in place?

I can just by cross checking monitoring see that there is a relation between performance and last re-start.

Its not that we have a lot of issues - rather the opposite.

Just want to see how the "general" community is seeing this. Of course maintenance and care on underlying infra and JVM is certainly a good hint. Consider that we have resources and expertise to have any eye on that.

In simple words - would you recommend a regular re-start - every week, month etc.... as a practice of maintenance?