Data Center Offline

[#1]

The experience of using Data Center without a connection to the Internet! Or: how to use Data Center on a private network.

1-- Why would anyone do this? For Industrial Control Systems (ICS) it is often more secure or mandated that there be an "air gap" with online systems. Or firewalls may prevent access. Certainly this enhances security for any system. This doesn't concern just Atlassian practices, but connection to the cloud opens a system to many bad actors.

2-- What are the issues that users face? Everything from administration, to help links, to updates & plugins is complicated by being offline. And what can users do to ease the pain?

3-- What can Atlassian do? There are a few simple actions or suggestions from users that the Atlassian community and Atlassian corporate can take to make offline users' lives easier. For example, the Plugins SDK provides a method of loading a jar file directly as a plugin. Users in theory could download plugs, securely transfer them to the private network and manually load them?

I am looking for: offline users to share their experiences & maybe a way to create a group or discussion forum for us.

[Evangeline Black]

I struggled with the technical language here and it took time to find and understand the software. I now am ready but data centre went off line. I was wondering if there is way to come back on line?  

[Lara Lopez]

To be honest, is not that mandatory to have an internet connection. The only things that you are missing are addons updates, and if you have a system so secure that you have it off the internet, then you probably take a lot of care of your system and addon upgrades.

That means you probably pick a date, check your system, your addons, download what you need and update. We even do this being able to reach the internet, with critical systems you just do not upgrade on a whim. You have a version picked of the addon that you have tested and use that one. So not so different from having it downloaded before hand?

How often do you click in help links? Because half the time they take you to out of date documentation. Or non existent, it is easier to search your problem online.

For me the only sore point is that users complained a lot about not being able to reach it from outside the network, and that we had a difficult time making some integrations. 

[Evangeline Black]

Thank you @Lara Lopez . This is helpful info. I agree about the documentation. Time management for integrations is also difficult. I learnt about critical system and upgrades. As I novice to this technology and layout, I understand it takes a while.

[pas.argenio]

@Lara Lopez Thanks for the helpful thoughts. When you say "download what you need and update", can you elaborate on the steps & tools used? We placed a new add-on in the correct location, then went to the add-ons page, but it would not load (hung forever). So now I am looking into atlas-install-plugin however it requires the entire "Atlassian Plug SDK" to be set up, which is formidable.

I NEVER click the help links. But how do I stop my users from doing so? What I am saying is that we need a way to disable or eliminate them. Everyone is not a power user like you & I.

[Lara Lopez]

Hello,

But everything related to atlas-install-plugin is for jira app development. If we are talking about normal jira maintenance, you do not need that.

You can install apps two ways, either from jira, if you jira can reach the internet, directly from the marketplace. Or you can just download the app into your computer and then you can upload it into jira.

In the manage apps section you have a button for uploading apps, it works for new apps or upgrading them.

The only thing that I would download into the the jira machine is jira, that is only for doing upgrades.

As for the help links, to be honest I do not bother with them. I have hardly received complains about them, if they do not get the right information I can pass the user that complains the proper link but it has never been worth the effort.

[pas.argenio]

"Or you can just download the app into your computer and then you can upload it into jira."

Yes, when we "just" loaded it, it hung forever, at least, as I said, using the add-ons page. Yes, I know the SDK and atlas-install-plugin is for development, which I am not doing, but it gives you a way to load a plugin from the command line. That is the part that interests me. If only Atlassian would make that available standalone!

Help links are not a big deal. But to me, they are another annoyance of being an offline user, as if the hourly error message from Health Check that the Marketplace is unreachable. Maybe I am just tired of marketing & robocalls in society at large?

Again: greatly appreciate your engaging with me.

[Taranjeet Singh]

That's an interesting topic and discussion.

And I have faced such offline Server and Data Center instances while working for a few clients in the past.

And I felt that working on such secured or firewalled instances of Atlassian self-managed apps is a little complex than the online or non-firewalled instances, mainly for the ability to connect to the Atlassian Marketplace to install or update add-ons or apps.

It would be great if a dedicated group could be created for offline Data Center admins and users.

[Daniel Ebers]

It comes without problems to run Jira (Data Center) without Internet Connection, as for the App (upgrades).
It *could* be an annoyance when you rely on Application links which are not able to reach the destination, though.
For error messages that state they cannot reach Marketplace, they can be turned off.

So, I think "Jira without Internet access" is a two sided topic, in case you are working from a location where no network access (or at least not a reliable one is present) it can be troublesome, still.