This document outlines 5 key skills that enterprise administrators need to know to manage Atlassian products at scale. The 5 skills are: 1) Governance - centralizing setup, teams, and processes; 2) Performance - understanding factors that impact performance and implementing quick wins; 3) Monitoring - establishing monitoring strategies, metrics, and tools; 4) Upgrade Strategy - deciding on release timing, planning upgrades, and leveraging experts; 5) Human Side of Scaling - empowering users, implementing change control, and providing support. The document provides examples and recommendations for each skill area from Atlassian and Airbnb's experiences scaling their Atlassian instances.

1. Top 5 Skills Enterprise Admins
Need to Know
ISHA MEHTA | PRODUCT MANAGER | ATLASSIAN | @ISHA_MEHTA_
ALEX GALLIEN | SENIOR ATLASSIAN ADMIN | AIRBNB

2. Context Skills Questions
Agenda

3. ALEX GALLIEN
• Jira guy
• Yoga and meditation teacher
• Snake dad
• Fire dancer
SENIOR ATLASSIAN ENGINEER
@ AIRBNB

4. ISHA MEHTA
PRODUCT MANAGER @
ATLASSIAN
• Cake enthusiast
• Instagram influencer

5. BEING AN ADMIN IS

6. BEING AN ENTERPRISE ADMIN

7. Multiple
Instances
One
Instance
ADMIN ADMIN AT SCALE

8. Across
multiple
teams
Across
one or two
teams
ADMIN ADMIN AT SCALE

9. Multiple
locations
around the
world
One
location
ADMIN ADMIN AT SCALE

10. Atlassian
products are
mission
critical for
all teams
Atlassian
products
are used by
specific
teams
ADMIN ADMIN AT SCALE

11. Introduction Skills Questions
Agenda

12. Introduction Skills Questions
Agenda

13. How Atlassian product adoption begins

15. Centralise,
Centralise,
Centralise!
Limit Access Empower users
to self service
Balance
flexibility vs
consistency
Skill #1: Governance

16. Centralise,
Centralise,
Centralise!
Limit Access Empower users
to self service
Balance
flexibility vs
consistency
Skill #1: Governance

17. Centralise setup
Two ways: Scale single server instance or adopt
Datacenter

18. Multiple nodesSingle node
SERVER DATACENTER

19. Centralise setup
Two ways: Scale single instance or adopt
Datacenter
Centralise team
Establish one team that administers Atlassian
products

20. Airbnb’s Admin Team Structure

21. Centralise setup
Two ways: Scale single instance or adopt
Datacenter
Centralise teams
Establish one team that administers Atlassian
products
Centralise processes
Make sure that there are processes set in place
across the Atlassian product suite

22. Oxford Dictionary
Process;
a series of actions or steps
taken in order to achieve a
particular end

23. Centralise,
Centralise,
Centralise!
Limit Access Empower users
to self service
Balance
flexibility vs
consistency
Skill #1: Governance

25. Understand access levels
Sys-admin vs admin vs project admin

26. Understand access levels
Sys-admin vs admin vs project admin
Limit access
Give the right access to the right people

27. Understand access levels
Sys-admin vs admin vs project admin
Limit access
Give the right access to the right people
Regular audit of access
Continually reassess whether the access is still
required

28. Centralise,
Centralise,
Centralise!
Limit Access Empower users
to self service
Balance
flexibility vs
consistency
Skill #1: Governance

30. Establish knowledge base
A single source of truth for users to understand
Atlassian products

32. Establish knowledge base
A single source of truth for users to understand
Atlassian products
Outline intended use
How does your company use Atlassian products?

36. Establish knowledge base
A single source of truth for users to understand
Atlassian products
Outline intended use
How does your company use Atlassian products?
Create open channel of communication
Through communication mediums like Slack or
support desks

37. https://airbnb.slack.com/totallyrealaddress

38. Centralise,
Centralise,
Centralise!
Limit Access Empower users
to self service
Balance
flexibility vs
consistency
Skill #1: Governance

39. Jira is slow
EVERY USER, EVER.

40. Know what
impacts
performance
Know your
limits
Seek first to
understand
Quick
performance
wins
Skill #2: Performance

41. Know what
impacts
performance
Know your
limits
Seek first to
understand
Quick
performance
wins
Skill #2: Performance

43. Number of issues ≠ performance
Don’t use only number of issues as an indicator of
performance

44. Number of issues ≠ performance
Don’t use only number of issues as an indicator of
performance
Understand other factors that impact
performance
E.g. Usage patterns, configuration, deployment

45. Number of issues ≠ performance
Don’t use only number of issues as an indicator of
performance
Understand other factors that impact
performance
E.g. Usage patterns, configuration, deployment
Understand your environment
Everyone’s environment is different, having a firm
understanding of yours is crucial

46. Know what
impacts
performance
Know your
limits
Seek first to
understand
Quick
performance
wins
Skill #2: Performance

48. Hardware limits
It’s essential that your servers are correctly sized for
your usage level

49. Hardware limits
It’s essential that your servers are correctly sized for
your usage level
Usage limits
Understand your usage patterns, especially when it
comes to integrations

50. Hardware limits
It’s essential that your servers are correctly sized for
your usage level
Usage limits
Understand your usage patterns, especially when it
comes to integrations
Configuration complexity
Products do not scale infinitely, ensure that your
environment can handle your level of customization

51. Know what
impacts
performance
Know your
limits
Seek first to
understand
Quick
performance
wins
Skill #2: Performance

53. Understand user needs and goals
What are your user’s goals and what do they need
to be successful?

54. Understand user needs and goals
What are your user’s goals and what do they need
to be successful?
Explain “why”
Behind all your actions

55. Understand user needs and goals
What are your user’s goals and what do they need
to be successful?
Explain “why”
Behind all your actions
It’s not you, it’s them
Sometimes users screw things up

56. Know what
impacts
performance
Know your
limits
Seek first to
understand
Quick
performance
wins
Skill #2: Performance

58. Custom field context
Get in the habit of setting this for all new custom
fields!

59. Custom field context
Get in the habit of setting this for all new custom
fields!
Plugin: Cleaner for Jira
This plugin can help clean up your instances as you
establish better habits

61. AfterBefore
14 SECONDS 1 SECOND

62. Turn off empty JQL Search
This is a big improvement in perceived performance,
and very easy to fix!
Custom field context
Get in the habit of setting this for all new custom
fields!
Plugin: Cleaner for Jira
This plugin can help clean up your instances as you
establish better habits

64. Know what to
monitor
Establish a
monitoring
strategy
Think about
non-alerted
metrics
External
monitoring
tools
Skill #3: Monitoring

65. Know what to
monitor
Establish a
monitoring
strategy
Think about
non-alerted
metrics
External
monitoring
tools
Skill #3: Monitoring

67. There are two types of metrics
Usage and Infrastructure

68. Hosting options
CPU/Disk speed
Available memory
JVM/JMX statistics
Database performance
Network speed
Number of issues
Number of custom fields
Number of concurrent users
Activity of major integrations
Available license seats
USAGE INFRASTRUCTURE

69. There are two types of metrics
Usage and Infrastructure
Establish alert levels
Behind all your actions

70. Pager
🚨 JIRA IS DOWN 🚨
Critical CPU/Disk consumption (>90%)
Manual incidents
Slack Channel
Mail hasn’t been processed for x minutes
Staging/Development node down
Early warnings for CPU/Disk (>65%)

71. There are two types of metrics
Usage and Infrastructure
Establish alert levels
Behind all your actions
Outline alert actions
What will you do once this alert is triggered?

72. Know what to
monitor
Establish a
monitoring
strategy
Think about
non-alerted
metrics
Consider other
tools
Skill #3: Monitoring

74. Key Performance Indicators
Identify KPIs that show you that your instance is
performing at an optimal level

75. Set realistic targets
Understand your instance before setting these
targets
Key Performance Indicators
Identify KPIs that show you that your instance is
performing at an optimal level

76. Key Performance Indicators
Identify KPIs that show you that your instance is
performing at an optimal level
Set realistic targets
Understand your instance before setting these
targets
Service Level Agreements
Establish SLAs to react to alerts to ensure you’re
effective

77. Know what to
monitor
Establish a
monitoring
strategy
Think about
non-alerted
metrics
Consider other
tools
Skill #3: Monitoring

79. Number of users/fields in Jira
The rate of which this is growing

80. Number of users/fields in Jira
The rate of which this is growing
Number of active HTTP threads
Any easy metric to see how actively used the
product is.

81. Number of users/fields in Jira
The rate of which this is growing
Number of active HTTP threads
Any easy metric to see how actively used the
product is.
Mail sent by Jira
Jira is chatty, it’s good to keep an eye on it

83. Know what to
monitor
Establish a
monitoring
strategy
Think about
non-alerted
metrics
Consider other
tools
Skill #3: Monitoring

85. Java Melody
Monitor the health of your JVM

86. Java Melody
Monitor the health of your JVM
New Relic
End-to-end transaction tracing, application
response times, JVM analysis, thread profiling

87. Java Melody
Monitor the health of your JVM
New Relic
End-to-end transaction tracing, application
response times, JVM analysis, thread profiling
Dynatrace
End-to-end tracing and monitoring.

88. Incident alerting based on
data from monitoring tools
Airbnb’s Monitoring Tools
Monitoring infrastructure and
usage metrics
Log aggregation and
monitoring

89. Decide what
release is right
for you
Plan your
upgrade
Upgrade your
instance
Lean on experts
Skill #4: Upgrade Strategy

90. Decide what
release is right
for you
Plan your
upgrade
Upgrade your
instance
Lean on experts
Skill #4: Upgrade Strategy

92. Platform release
(e.g. Jira 8.0) contains significant or breaking
changes

93. Platform release
(e.g. Jira 8.0) contains significant or breaking
changes
Feature release
(e.g. Jira 7.9) can contain new features,
improvements etc

94. Platform release
(e.g. Jira 8.0) contains significant or breaking
changes
Feature release
(e.g. Jira 7.9) can contain new features,
improvements etc
Enterprise release
(e.g. Jira 7.13) will receive bug fixes for a longer period
of time than a standard feature release

95. Decide what
release is right
for you
Plan your
upgrade
Upgrade your
instance
Lean on experts
Skill #4: Upgrade Strategy

97. Understand changes in supported
platforms
Dedicated “Supported Platforms” page

98. Understand changes in supported
platforms
Dedicated “Supported Platforms” page
Run instance health checks
Ensure your instance is healthy before an upgrade

100. Understand changes in supported
platforms
Dedicated “Supported Platforms” page
Run instance health checks
Ensure your instance is healthy before an upgrade
Pre-Upgrade Planning Page
Tailored upgrade path specific to your instance

102. Decide what
release is right
for you
Plan your
upgrade
Upgrade your
instance
Lean on experts
Skill #4: Upgrade Strategy

104. Always test your upgrade
And ensure you document all your learning

105. Always test your upgrade
And ensure you document all your learning
Utilize Data Center upgrade features
Jira zero downtime upgrades and Confluence read-
only mode

106. Always test your upgrade
And ensure you document all your learning
Utilize Data Center upgrade features
Jira zero downtime upgrades and Confluence read-
only mode
Automate (where possible)
Airbnb leverages Chef and Terraform to make
upgrades as painless as possible

107. Decide what
release is right
for you
Plan your
upgrade
Upgrade your
instance
Lean on experts
Skill #4: Upgrade Strategy

109. Technical Account Management
Strategic scaling of Atlassian products and
managing for growth

110. Priority & Premier Support
Coverage for Atlassian applications at scale
Technical Account Management
Strategic scaling of Atlassian products and
managing for growth

111. Priority & Premier Support
Coverage for Atlassian applications at scale
Solution Partners
For solutions, training and strategic services
Technical Account Management
Strategic scaling of Atlassian products and
managing for growth

112. Help users help
themselves
Change control Make it easy to
find help
Learn to say no
Skill #5: Human Side of Scaling

113. Help users help
themselves
Change control Make it easy to
find help
Learn to say no
Skill #5: Human Side of Scaling

115. Atlassian University and Certification
Online classes, live team training & tutorials

116. Atlassian University and Certification
Online classes, live team training & tutorials
Power User Groups
Team of power users that learn from each other

117. Atlassian University and Certification
Online classes, live team training & tutorials
Power User Groups
Team of power users that learn from each other
Establish Subject Matter Experts
For particular use cases such as specific add-ons

118. Help users help
themselves
Change control Make it easy to
find help
Learn to say no
Skill #5: Human Side of Scaling

120. Understand the “why”
What problem are they trying to solve?

121. Understand the “why”
What problem are they trying to solve?
Test all changes
In a non-production environment

122. Understand the “why”
What problem are they trying to solve?
Test all changes
In a non-production environment
Have a backup plan
In case things go wrong

123. Help users help
themselves
Change control Make it easy to
find help
Learn to say no
Skill #5: Human Side of Scaling

125. Establish single source of support
E.g. Jira Project

127. Establish single source of support
E.g. Jira Project
Have a dedicated comms channel
E.g. Slack

128. Establish single source of support
E.g. Jira Project
Have a dedicated comms channel
E.g. Slack
Be available
Balance project work vs operational work

129. Help users help
themselves
Change control Make it easy to
find help
Learn to say no
Skill #5: Human Side of Scaling

130. Help users help
themselves
Change control Make it easy to
find help
Learn to say no
(in the right
way!)
Skill #5: Human Side of Scaling

131. You’re the ultimate
gatekeeper of your Atlassian
products
ISHA & ALEX

133. 1
4
3
2
Establish governance early on
Learn how your instance performs & set guidelines
Monitor changes in your instance and set alerts
Develop an upgrade strategy & plan to update regularly
Skills recap
5 Recognise that users are only human

134. Thank you!
ISHA MEHTA | PRODUCT MANAGER | ATLASSIAN | @ISHA_MEHTA_
ALEX GALLIEN | SENIOR ATLASSIAN ADMIN | AIRBNB