Install JIRA service desk on existing on premise instance used for dev or fresh instance?

[Eric Chadwick]

Hi,

A client of ours, already has an on premise instance running JIRA for the purpose of managing development and infrastructure tasks.  They wish to run a service desk installation in addition to drive some of those tasks.  They are currently considering whether to install the service desk on top of their existing JIRA install or whether to setup another JIRA instance with service desk - possibly Atlassian hosted.

What are the pros and cons of installing on the same instance vs attempting to link to a remote JIRA service desk?  Can you get all the same integration with the existing tickets in JIRA (and Stash, Bamboo, Confluence etc) when running on another instance?  As far as I can see service desk is designed to sit on top of the JIRA instance where you manage the resulting tickets created by the service desk?

Thanks,

Eric.

[Bhushan Nagaraj]

Hey Eric,

There are several considerations. Will point out a few.

• Having multiple instances will add administration overhead including user management, upgrades, etc.
• Having multiple instances will add to add-on costs. Might not be a big factor for small instances, but imagine running two instances with 10,000 users each and you need the same add-on on both instances, you will be paying for 2 licenses
• Federating JIRA has some limitations. For example, JSD 3.1 allows you to very easily create linked issues from an existing JSD ticket. This will not be possible with a federated instance. For more info, refer to https://confluence.atlassian.com/enterprise/federating-jira-managing-multiple-instances-461504624.html

At the same time, having multiple instances also comes with several advantages.

• Performance benefits
• More configuration possible with individual instances

You will probably have to list out more about your client, user count, administrative capabilities and resources available, etc to determine the best fit.

Cheers

Bhushan