Mediawiki to Confluence migration
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The document discusses Bigpoint's transition from MediaWiki to Confluence for over 500 users, highlighting the mission, integration challenges, and the migration process. The migration was carried out over six months, leading to successful user acceptance and a supportive user community, although it required considerable manpower and ongoing maintenance. Challenges included system integration costs, user training, and the need for skilled personnel for effective operation.
Mediawiki to Confluence migration
- 1. Switching to Confluence with 500+ Wiki users Migrating Bigpoint from Mediawiki to Confluence AUGHH user group meeting, 6.6.2012, Nils Hofmeister
- 2. Agenda • Before Confluence • The mission • Status quo • Learnings 2
- 4. Before Confluence • Time: October 2010 • Bigpoint has >500 employees • There is a bunch of MediaWiki instances (>50) • Some customization 4
- 6. Before Confluence 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. 6
- 7. Before Confluence 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… 7
- 9. The mission Open questions • How to integrate with Bigpoint IT platform? 9
- 10. The mission 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 10
- 11. The mission 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? 11
- 12. The mission 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… 12
- 13. The mission 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? 13
- 14. The mission 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 14
- 15. The mission 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? 15
- 16. The mission 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! 16
- 17. The mission 17
- 18. The mission 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 18
- 19. The mission 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 19
- 20. The mission 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 … 20
- 21. The mission 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 21
- 22. Status quo 22
- 23. Status quo • 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) 23
- 24. Status quo 24
- 25. Status quo Next big tasks 25
- 26. Status quo 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,… 26
- 27. Status quo 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 27
- 28. Learnings 28
- 29. Learnings Acceptance • In general, acceptance was given quickly since • Confluence is fancy • Brings a lot of features • Integrates with Jira nicely 29
- 30. Learnings 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 30
- 31. Learnings 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 31
- 32. Learnings 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 32
- 33. Learnings Costs • When we started about 1,5 persons permanently working on Confluence intro 33
- 34. Learnings Costs • When we started about 1,5 persons permanently working on Confluence intro • System integration was much more expensive than expected 34
- 35. Learnings 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 35
- 36. Learnings 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 36
- 37. Learnings Enterprisy requirements • Authentication and authorization requires customization 37
- 38. Learnings Enterprisy requirements • Authentication and authorization requires customization • Certain IT requirements hard to address • Replication • Failover • Automated deployment 38
- 39. Learnings 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 … 39
- 40. Learnings 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. 40
- 41. Summary 41
- 42. Summary •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 42
- 43. Summary If you want to operate a serious Confluence instance, you need manpower. But you get the best possible documentation system I know. 43
- 44. Contact us Bigpoint GmbH Nils Hofmeister Lead Integration Architect Drehbahn 47-48 20354 Hamburg Germany Tel +49 40.88 14 13 - 0 Fax +49 40.88 14 13 - 11 nhofmeister@bigpoint.net www.bigpoint.net Bigpoint Inc. Bigpoint Distribuição de Entretenimento Online Ltda. 500 Howard Street Suite 300 San Francisco, CA 94105 Av. Brig. Faria Lima 3729 cj. 528 04538-905 São Paulo Brazil Bigpoint GmbH Bigpoint International Services Limited Alexanderstraße 5 10178 Berlin Germany 1 Villa Zimmermann Ta’Xbiex Terrace XBX 1035 Ta’Xbiex Malta Find us on 44
- 45. Bigpoint GmbH First name, last name Title Drehbahn 47-48 20354 Hamburg Germany Tel +49 40.88 14 13 - 0 Fax +49 40.88 14 13 - 11 info@bigpoint.net www.bigpoint.net Find us on 45