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
Before Confluence
4
• Time: October 2010
• Bigpoint has >500 employees
• There is a bunch of MediaWiki instances (>50)
• Some customization
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…
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.
Summary
42
• 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
43
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