Closure Report
Project Summary
This project was initiated to continue the strategy of keeping Confluence version no more than a two point release behind the most recent vendor release. The benefits of doing so include:
- Introducing the latest patches and features to production as soon as possible
- Demonstrating long-term commitment to the Central Wiki Service
- Maintaining skill base around Confluence software
- Reviewing, auditing and rationalising installed plugins (add-ons)
This was a straightforward application-only upgrade project with no requirement to upgrade the database or infrastructure as this had been carried out in the previous years.
We delivered:
- DEV, TEST and LIVE application upgrade to v6.8
- Puppetisation was introduced by Dev Tech in order to automate future upgrades and patching, however due to Atlassian withdrawing the version we were going to use test Puppet (v6.15), the project team was unable to test Puppet. As a result, this is in place, but not rolled out.
- Plugins reviewed and purchased as necessary.
The upgrade was completed ahead of the end of the academic year, as set out in the brief, and was done with minimal impact to users as it was completed out of hours as per previous upgrades.
A note of thanks to the project team for their efforts and out of hours contributions to once again making the annual Wiki upgrade a success.
Objectives and Deliverables
| Number | Description |
Priority MoSCoW |
Achieved? |
| Objective 1 | Upgrade wiki service to the latest version of Confluence | ||
|
D1.1 |
Install the latest sustainable enterprise release version of the wiki version 6.8 in DEV, TEST and LIVE environments | Must Have | Y |
| D1.2 | Refresh of the TEST environments with the latest Production data (DEV has already been done ) | Must Have | Y |
| D1.3 | Updated technical and support documentation | Must Have | Y |
| Objective 2 | Test / Recode the IDM connector | ||
| D2.1 |
Testing of the IDM connector in DEV, TEST and LIVE, fixing any issues that are noted. IDM connector will be tested after DEV is upgraded. This will determine if remedial development work is required |
Must Have |
Y No remedial work was required. |
| Objective 3 | To fully test the upgraded service and ensure it is fit for purpose | ||
| D3.1 | Thorough functional testing | Must Have | Y |
| D3.2 | User acceptance testing of upgraded service | Must Have | Y |
All objectives and deliverables have been achieved.
JIRAs raised after deployment
The following JIRAs were raised after LIVE deployment and have been resolved.
https://www.jira.is.ed.ac.uk/browse/COM046-10: False positive caught in Admin IP restrictions
https://www.jira.is.ed.ac.uk/browse/COM046-11: Wiki groups with mixed case names missing in CSUM
These were not caught in TEST as:
JIRA 10 - This allowed users in ahead of rollout to the Wiki admin pages for configuration checks. However pages with the word "admin" in the title were allowed through the holding page.
JIRA 11 - Existing groups that were tested were in the correct lower case, so the issue did not present itself due to the specific circumstances needed to reproduce this.
Analysis of Resource Usage:
Staff Usage Estimate: 65 days
Staff Usage Actual: 57 days
Service Management Estimate: 8 days
Service Management Actual: 10 days
The project completed under budget.
Outcome
| 3-Point Estimate (days) | Actual (days) | |
| Project Services | 19.4 | 14.5 |
| Software Development | 2.7 | 0 |
| Development Technology | 21.1 | 28 |
| Applications Management | 6.4 | 2.8 |
| Technology Management | 6.4 | 1.1 |
| Service Management | 8.3 | 10.9 |
| Directors Office | 1 | 0 |
Explanation for variance
The project encountered a number of very minor issues uncovered during UAT, and the two issues noted after deployment to LIVE. This impacted Service Management and Development Technology time. Overall the project was completed under budget due to small contingency time used and limited project re-work required.
Key Learning Points
This project ran smoothly with an application only upgrade which is an annual occurrence. The key learning points from previous project were taken into account.
Two key learning points are noted from JIRAs 10 and 11:
| Issue | Key Learning Point |
| Restrictions put in place to allow access to admin pages ahead of rollout also caught pages with the word "Admin" in the title and this allowed these to bypass the holding page. | Be aware of the use of "<LocationMatch .....> settings that could affect wiki pages with the wording in page titles. |
| A change to a plugin's behaviour as part of this release meant that Wiki group names with mixed case are no longer allowed in CSUM. Testing was carried out with existing groups in lower case so this bug was not spotted before release. | More thorough end user / space owner testing and responses in this area could have picked this bug up in TEST. Better user engagement and a wider follow up process required for future UAT. |
Outstanding Issues
In order to allow Puppet to be utilised, the following tasks and notes should be taking into account for the next upgrade:
- Consider adding more config files to the list of puppet managed files - e.g. server.xml
- Next upgrade will be first to try a fully puppetised upgrade.
- To allow puppet to manage service delete wiki.service and replace with confluence.service - the puppet forge module cannot cope with the wiki.service name.
- Add full server restart in the LIVE downtime period.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
 estimated_vs_actual_teams_v2.png | 11.45 KB |
