Is there any reason for running multiple instances of JIRA and/or Confluence in an organization that wants to focus on cross-functional collaboration, communication (reporting), and transparency?

[Business UserPM]

Less than a year ago, it is my understanding that an instance of JIRA was set up for the IT department. A short time later, there was one business unit that wanted to try it out. Rather than have them use the original instance, the other business unit was set up in another instance. There are also 2 instances of Confluence and not everything seems to talk to everything else. Since then, other business units want to leverage the tools, but it is very confusing as to why there are multiple instances and if it makes sense to collapse everything into one instance or not at this time. No one seems to be able to articulate the original reason for have unique instances, other than perhaps trust and the effort it takes to define common fields.

So the questions are: Any behind the scenes reasons for having multiple instances (benefits/drawbacks)? If we ultimately want to encourage collaboration and reporting across all business units, shouldn't we be in the same instance and isn't that easier to do sooner rather than later? Is there a load or license issue that may be in play here? I am just trying to understand the situation so that we can make good business decisions. Thanks!

[Eva]

the fact that the last change log is back in 2010, I dont think it has any plan to update to make it JIRA5 compatible. It seems like you have already created a ticket for that plugin, so that's pretty much the only option.

The other option is to take the source and change it yourself, but that might take awhile.