Zafin is a leading provider of product and pricing control solutions helping banks to manage
the conduct risk and increase customer lifetime value. Zafin’s offers a cloud-based SaaS
platform that can be implemented quickly, with minimal to no changes required to existing
product systems. Headquartered in Toronto with offices around the globe, Zafin is a trusted
name when it comes to some of the world’s largest retail and corporate banks.
Zafin’s Product Development Team worked on multiple Jira instances of Server and Cloud.
With an End Of Life(EOL) Jira version on the Server Instance and a latest version of Jira on
cloud version Zafin was looked at enreap as the Atlassian Platinum Solution partner to
provide the assistance in evaluating the scenario, evaluating the possible solutions and
providing roadmap with implementation for merger of instance and migration to single Jira
cloud instance.
Highlights
400 Standardized Projects
Single Source to Track
Latest updated version on Cloud
End to End Traceability
Single Integration with 3rd Party Apps
enreap took an holistic approach towards the challenges faced by Zafin and possible
to Business Impact to draw out the solution.
Zafin was faced with multiple challenges. There were multiple levels of complexity with
regards to EOL product, lack of standardisation, two separate deployment platforms and
customised development. The challenges could be classified as broadly as below:
Multiple Instances with different versions with collaboration and communication between them
End of life version on Server Instance with incompatible Database
Detailed definition of standardized project management practices to follow post the unification of JIRA instances on Atlassian Cloud
Design of a standardized format & cross-functional workflows for all projects on JIRA
Technical Challenges
Difference in Versions of instances Server on EOL with support discontinued and Cloud on latest version. Direct Upgrade if Server Database was not possible
Server instance was a 10 years old instance with 500 users with total 2009 projects. Essential Data was to be retained and continued with
Customization over years with haphazard configurations with growing number of users increased complexity
Both instances were in different locations and used for different purposes but had communication and collaboration. These were now to be merged and moved to a single instance
Lack of end to end traceability with manual tracking, scattered process and
workflows leading no single source of truth for tracking
Growing complexity and customisation were creating issues in usability
Business Critical Solutions which lead to requirement of minimal downtime
Lack of control over task execution. Eg. Enforcement of correct Templates
The Solution
Starting with an analysis of the existing processes in the various departments and the
integrations enreap discussed in length with all key stakeholders involved for their
challenges and business scenarios impacted. The solution focused on not just migration
but the way in which Zafin could drive best output right from standardisation of project
management to having everyone latest version of Atlassian cloud with best features.
enreap analysed both the instances and designed the roadmap for the unification of
the same. The best solution being migration to cloud, enreap designed the Jira
merging plan for both the instances and executed the same on the staging first.
enreap built a multiple hop strategy to be able to bring up the old version at par with
the latest and then be able to merge. The next step involved the merged instance
migration to the cloud instance by enreap, to have all the users access a common
instance across the organisation. Lastly the standardization of all the projects used on
the Jira instances was recommended by enreap that was agreed and signed off.
Deep discovery of existing processes, tools, and project management workflows – the goal was to identify key differences in project management practices between the teams using different versions of JIRA
Detailed analysis of both the JIRA instances to prepare a unification roadmap using Atlassian Cloud
Detailed definition of standardized project management practices to follow post the unification of JIRA instances on Atlassian Cloud
Design of a standardized format & cross-functional workflows for all projects on JIRA
Version upgrades to ensure that both JIRA instances use the same version
Consolidation of data from both the servers into a single instance including user consolidation and project configurations
Migration of the merged instance to the cloud instance
JIRA customization for customer-specific projects and project management standardization
Business Impact
The Migration to single source from Server to Cloud was achieved with Zero Downtime
during Business Hour. With the Standardisation in configuration the Team experienced
uniformity across leading to streamlined working. Cross functional efficiency across
geographies increased with better communication and collaboration with single source.
Also with a single instance the teams were able to maintain a single integration with
third party apps.
Improved cross-functional efficiency, team collaboration & communication because of a single
source of tracking
Uniformity across multiple teams with a standardized JIRA instance
Standardized project management processes across all teams leading
to better communication and collaboration
Easier maintenance of integration with third-party applications