mediawiki to confluence migration
DESCRIPTION
Presentation from Atlassian User Group Hamburg, 6.6.2012. Topic was migration from Mediawiki and rollout of Confluence in a complex environment with a lot of content.TRANSCRIPT
Switching to Confluence with 500+ Wiki users
Migrating Bigpoint from Mediawiki to Confluence
AUGHH user group meeting, 6.6.2012,Nils Hofmeister
Agenda
2
• Before Confluence
• The mission
• Status quo
• Learnings
3
Before Confluence
Before Confluence
4
• Time: October 2010
• Bigpoint has >500 employees
• There is a bunch of MediaWiki instances (>50)
• Some customization
Before Confluence
5
Before Confluence
6
We had the wrong tool for the wrong people and it hurt. But barely anybody was aware…
Fortunately there were a couple of people interested in replacing our Wiki by Confluence.
Before Confluence
7
To justify the costs, we used the following arguments:
• Global search
• Spaces
• Role-based permissions
• Connection to Jira
• Versioning + concurrency handling
• All the plugins
• Migration via UWC
In late 2010, we got approval.
The fight for resources started…
8
The mission
The mission
9
Open questions
• How to integrate with Bigpoint IT platform?
The mission
10
Open questions
• How to integrate with Bigpoint IT platform?• Have everything in SVN• Wrap Tomcat daemon so it works with monitoring, Ops automation etc• Use configuration templates for modified files• Setup a staging system
The mission
11
Open questions
• How to integrate with Bigpoint IT platform?• Have everything in SVN• Wrap Tomcat daemon so it works with monitoring, Ops automation etc• Use configuration templates for modified files• Setup a staging system
• Who maintains it?
The mission
12
Open questions
• How to integrate with Bigpoint IT platform?• Have everything in SVN• Wrap Tomcat daemon so it works with monitoring, Ops automation etc• Use configuration templates for modified files• Setup a staging system
• Who maintains it?• My team (Release Engineering)• Right combination of skills and focus, but still…
The mission
13
Open questions
• How to integrate with Bigpoint IT platform?• Have everything in SVN• Wrap Tomcat daemon so it works with monitoring, Ops automation etc• Use configuration templates for modified files• Setup a staging system
• Who maintains it?• My team (Release Engineering)• Right combination of skills and focus, but still…
• How exactly will migration happen?
The mission
14
Open questions
• How to integrate with Bigpoint IT platform?• Have everything in SVN• Wrap Tomcat daemon so it works with monitoring, Ops automation etc• Use configuration templates for modified files• Setup a staging system
• Who maintains it?• My team (Release Engineering)• Right combination of skills and focus, but still…
• How exactly will migration happen?• First sample spaces as example• New “units” go directly to Confluence• Migrate Teams step by step using UWC• => Soft migration
The mission
15
Open questions
• How to integrate with Bigpoint IT platform?• Have everything in SVN• Wrap Tomcat daemon so it works with monitoring, Ops automation etc• Use configuration templates for modified files• Setup a staging system
• Who maintains it?• My team (Release Engineering)• Right combination of skills and focus, but still…
• How exactly will migration happen?• First sample spaces as example• New “units” go directly to Confluence• Migrate Teams step by step using UWC• => Soft migration
• What about Kerberos SSO and AD?
The mission
16
Kerberos
• Not easy to grasp
• Hard to deal with when you are not admin
• Gave us a lot of trouble in Java context
So we used an already existing in-house service:
Behold… LoginProxy!
The mission
17
The mission
18
Integration
• We had a first RC ready in April 2011
• It used LoginProxy for authentication
• It used a cronjob + SOAP for AD sync / authorization
• We had two blades in place for staging + production:• 2x Quad core, 12 GB RAM, 2x 320 GB HDD, SATA, JBOD• Backup etc via Bigpoint standard mechanisms
• Took about 5 man weeks to get everything ready and test it
• Central technology teams started using it
• Administration was cooperation of Release Engineering + IT Engineering
The mission
19
Migration
• No interruption of ongoing projects
• Long migration timeframe (>6 months)
• Lack of acceptance with some users
• UWC results very mixed
• => More users started noticing Confluence…
• Thank god we had a tech writer who could assist with content, support and training
The mission
20
Migration
• Tracking of wiki migration using Jira
• Conversion respecting stakeholder schedules
• Mediawikis still exist, but read-only
• A lot of training• Brown bag meetings• Coaching per group• Update meetings• Confluence space• Examples• …
The mission
21
Result: Success
Specs, 06/2012 (14 month later):
• 971 users
• 152 groups
• 152 spaces (without personal)
• 19.493 pages created
• 34.091 attachments uploaded
“You can find our current documentation in Confluence”-Random Bigpoint employee
22
Status quo
Status quo
23
• In use worldwide• E.g. Hamburg, Berlin, Malta, San Francisco
• Confluence 3.5.13• Balsamiq• Gliffy
• So far 2 custom plugins in development• Custom Jira issue creator• Custom AD synchronizer
• Integration with• Jira
• Issues macros, shortcut links• Application link
• Jenkins• Internal middleware (e.g. mailtool)
Status quo
24
Status quo
25
Next big tasks
Status quo
26
Next big tasks
• Confluence 4• Delayed to avoid shocking our users with 2 major changes within 1 year• Mixed feelings: markup power users, APIs, coaching,…
Status quo
27
Next big tasks
• Confluence 4• Delayed to avoid shocking our users with 2 major changes within 1 year• Mixed feelings: markup power users, APIs, coaching,…
• Better Kerberos Integration• Avoid trouble with cached passwords vs. tool integration• Reduces maintenance efforts and reliability
28
Learnings
Learnings
29
Acceptance
• In general, acceptance was given quickly since• Confluence is fancy• Brings a lot of features• Integrates with Jira nicely
Learnings
30
Acceptance
• In general, acceptance was given quickly since• Confluence is fancy• Brings a lot of features• Integrates with Jira nicely
• Maybe a hard migration would have been easier…• …but we would have had far more haters
Learnings
31
Acceptance
• In general, acceptance was given quickly since• Confluence is fancy• Brings a lot of features• Integrates with Jira nicely
• Maybe a hard migration would have been easier…• …but we would have had far more haters
• Remaining haters could be convinced by• Dedicated trainings + support• New features (e.g. heatmap, role-based security,…) • Fast reactions – when we started: immediate changes
Learnings
32
Acceptance
• In general, acceptance was given quickly since• Confluence is fancy• Brings a lot of features• Integrates with Jira nicely
• Maybe a hard migration would have been easier…• …but we would have had far more haters
• Remaining haters could be convinced by• Dedicated trainings + support• New features (e.g. heatmap, role-based security,…) • Fast reactions – when we started immediate changes
Conclusion: when the field isn’t green, only soft migration works
Learnings
33
Costs
• When we started about 1,5 persons permanently working on Confluence intro
Learnings
34
Costs
• When we started about 1,5 persons permanently working on Confluence intro
• System integration was much more expensive than expected
Learnings
35
Costs
• When we started about 1,5 persons permanently working on Confluence intro
• System integration was much more expensive than expected
• Right now, work on demand• Bug fixes• Plugin development• Coaching of new people• Changes and extensions• Standardization
• Basically, 1-2 persons are permanently working on Confluence one way or the other
Learnings
36
Costs
• When we started about 1,5 persons permanently working on Confluence intro
• System integration was much more expensive than expected
• Right now, work on demand• Bug fixes• Plugin development• Coaching of new people• Changes and extensions• Standardization
• Basically, 1-2 persons are permanently working on Confluence one way or the other
Conclusion: 2 fulltime persons needed for a Confluence of our size and usage scenario: a DevOps guy and a workflow person
Learnings
37
Enterprisy requirements
• Authentication and authorization requires customization
Learnings
38
Enterprisy requirements
• Authentication and authorization requires customization
• Certain IT requirements hard to address• Replication• Failover• Automated deployment
Learnings
39
Enterprisy requirements
• Authentication and authorization requires customization
• Certain IT requirements hard to address• Replication• Failover• Automated deployment
• Some features are not yet convenient enough• Bulk attachment upload• Easy update of attachments (e.g. excel files)• Default groups for new users• Notification email templates• …
Learnings
40
Enterprisy requirements
• Authentication and authorization requires customization
• Certain IT requirements hard to address• Replication• Failover• Automated deployment
• Some features are not yet convenient enough• Bulk attachment upload• Easy update of attachments (e.g. excel files)• Default groups for new users• Notification email templates• …
Conclusion: If you want to customize Confluence significantly, you will need admin and Java dev skills.
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Summary
Summary
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• The good• Soft migration via UWC worked for us• Users were happy quickly• The possibilities are awesome
• The bad• The frontend is fancy, maintenance can be weird
• The ugly• It costs quite some manpower for serious operation• It needs continuous effort for acceptance• You need skilled, hard to find people for this
Summary
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If you want to operate a serious Confluence instance, you need manpower.
But you get the best possible documentation system I know.
Find us on44
Bigpoint GmbH
Alexanderstraße 510178 BerlinGermany
Bigpoint Inc.
500 Howard StreetSuite 300San Francisco, CA 94105
Bigpoint Distribuição de Entretenimento Online Ltda.
Av. Brig. Faria Lima3729 cj. 52804538-905 São PauloBrazil
Bigpoint GmbHNils HofmeisterLead Integration Architect
Drehbahn 47-4820354 Hamburg Germany
Tel +49 40.88 14 13 - 0Fax +49 40.88 14 13 - 11
Contact us
Bigpoint International Services Limited
1 Villa ZimmermannTa’Xbiex TerraceXBX 1035 Ta’XbiexMalta
Find us on
45
Bigpoint GmbHFirst name, last name
Title
Drehbahn 47-4820354 Hamburg
Germany
Tel +49 40.88 14 13 - 0Fax +49 40.88 14 13 - 11