What is the best strategy for deploying JIRA instances through environments DEV, TEST, PTA, PROD

Peter Goudman1

When developing for large enterprise customers what is the best way to manage the deployment of JIRA?

We would like to create an instance that developers use for creating workflows, schemas, screens, plugins etc.

Then move this through the various environments

Develop on the DEV instance. export everything to TEST, then move to PTA, and so on.

E.G. JIRA moves through DEV => TEST => PTA => PROD

Does any recommended practice documentation exist for the best strategy?

Has anyone any experience in this area, any help suggestions are appreciated.

Eva8

Um, it's a good strategy before you go live. Once you go live, it wont be that simple b/c you dont want to override your changes on production using your test data.

Currently I have documented our system admins as follows:

1) Backup PROD. Shut down PROD (you cant backup when JIRA is offline...)

2) Import the xml to DEV. Add on whatever changes you had tested before, and then reimport it back to TEST. Test throughly before import it to PROD.

For workflow, I usually just create a draft and then just implement on the fly (b/c its easiest) and it allows you to save copy in case you mess up. I also recommend to Copy the workflow scheme FIRST, associate it to your current project, then work on your "main" workflow scheme, and then reassociate it back to project. This way the status mapping would match (i learnd this the hard way)

Workflows now also allow you to export and reimport, which is a good feature but I hvent got around with it.

For plugin, it's best to test in DEV and then when everything looks good in TEST, just deploy it to prod -- given that you have a downtime schedule

Hope this helps!