“We now have a modern, redundant and scalable environment. The next step is to expand the functionality of the tools and make even better use of them.”- Mats Erksén, responsible for the implementation and migration to the Data Center in a new target environment, The Swedish Public Employment Service
The IT department of the Swedish Public Employment Service has moved to a modern platform that is redundant and scalable. Atlassian Data Center is increasing the availability of Jira and Confluence, which the 1,000 developers use in their collaboration. The next step is to expand with more functionality and allow users outside IT to start using the tools.
When the old server solution no longer could meet the needs of the IT department, they needed to find a new solution. Authorities have special requirements regarding data storage and therefore the cloud was not an option. Instead, the employment service chose to build a completely new data center to get better performance and higher reliability.
In addition to setting up its own data center, the Swedish Public Employment Service needed to move Atlassian Suite into a completely new target environment. The logical choice was to switch from server versions of Jira, Bitbucket and Confluence to a data center solution. The authority lacked deep insight into the Atlassian Data Center and therefore asked Riada - Now part of Eficode for help.
"Since we had no knowledge of the Atlassian Data Center, we hired Riada - Now part of Eficode. With their help we could avoid making mistakes and losing valuable time." - Mats Erksén
The approximately 1,000 developers and close to 50 development teams depend on the collaboration tools to be able to work efficiently. The need for the tools has increased when working from home has become more common. The new data center must meet the requirements for availability and handle more users.
The work began with a long planning phase which included an inventory of the old system and an investigation of what the new environment would look like. Test environments were built and several test migrations were performed with real data. This approach has been used for Jira, Bitbucket and Confluence to ensure that everything works and that all data is included. After careful testing and planning, the migrations went relatively fast: Jira was done over a weekend while Bitbucket and Confluence took a morning each.
"Just after our first migration, Atlassian announced that they would discontinue the server solution. In other words, our decision to move to Data Center was correct. ” - Mats Erksén
The employment service chose to install the same versions of the tools in the new environment and concentrate on the transfer of data. By not adding any new functionality in the first step, they could compare without considering whether differences were due to the new version.
The Swedish Public Employment Service has a modern, redundant and scalable environment. The Data Center solution involves two or more servers instead of one, which means that the service still works if a server is down. In addition, it is possible to make configurations or maintenance in Jira, Confluence or Bitbucket while the users can continue working as usual. Previously, a production stop was required.
Scalability is important as more people within the authority begin to discover the benefits of Jira and Confluence. The Swedish Public Employment Service has about 10,000 employees and it is possible to let in many more new users if the need arises.
“People outside of IT are starting to get interested in working Agile in Jira. Now we have a scalable and redundant platform that can handle it. " - Mats Erksén
Now there is a good foundation that opens up great opportunities. The next step is to add more functionality to the tools; an example is Advanced Roadmap which is useful in large projects where several different teams collaborate.
A key to success has been the ability to communicate. A project of this size and complexity involves many different competencies within the authority. The small working group consisting of people from the Swedish Public Employment Service and expertise from Riada - Now part of Eficode have together created a network of contacts and successfully pushed the project forward. The collaboration with Atlassian has also worked well.
“Today, our development teams use Jira, but other groups are interested. Around 10,000 people work at the Swedish Public Employment Service. I think a lot of people can benefit from the tool.” - Mats Erksén
Confidence in the knowledge level of Riada - Now part of Eficode has been high throughout the project. Their consultants can support the Swedish Public Employment Service to add functionality, use the tools better, implement smoother user login, and to teach teams outside of IT to learn to work Agile.