Documentation

EA Sphere for Jira, version 1.0. Documentation for the standalone products is provided to each customer as part of the engagement.

Contents

Getting started

  1. Install EA Sphere from its Atlassian Marketplace listing. A Jira administrator must approve the installation.
  2. As an administrator, open EA Sphere’s settings under Jira administration and define your recovery tiers, reference lists, audiences and sender groups before any records are created, so that every record inherits them.
  3. Open EA Sphere from the Apps menu in Jira and add your systems, servers, interfaces and facilities, together with the dependencies between them.
  4. Reference systems from the EA Sphere panel on your Jira issues. From that point the map reflects the work in progress.

Concepts

  • Record: a system, server, interface or facility that the organization operates and could lose.
  • Upstream dependency: something a record needs in order to function. Downstream dependent: something that needs the record. Each dependency carries the direction of its data flow.
  • Recovery tier: a named set of recovery objectives (recovery time objective, recovery point objective, maximum tolerable downtime, availability target and review interval) that records inherit. A tier gap is flagged when a record depends on something held to a less demanding tier.
  • Degradation: any period in which a record is not performing as it should, whether planned or unplanned.
  • Change collision: two pieces of open work touching the same record. A freeze conflict is work scheduled inside a change-freeze window.
  • Audience and sender group: the people a notice is addressed to, and the Jira group permitted to send notices to them.
  • Continuity package: the continuity documents generated from the records.

Records and the map

Each record holds its owner, contacts, recovery tier, recovery sequence step, environment, business functions, lifecycle dates, data types and support path, together with its upstream dependencies, downstream dependents and hosting. Any number of dependencies may be added. On the map, selecting a record places it at the centre and shows its dependencies in both directions, one or more steps out, with the open work touching each record.

Work items

The EA Sphere panel appears on every Jira issue. Reference the records an issue affects and state how it relates to each, including whether the issue delivers or retires a record. The panel then shows the downstream impact, collisions with other open work and any freeze conflict. When an issue that delivers or retires a record is completed, EA Sphere updates the record and writes the change to the change log.

Degradations and notices

Record a degradation against the affected record, then add timestamped updates as it moves through its stages, together with incident tickets, root cause and mitigation. Elapsed time is measured against the recovery time objective of the record’s tier. Notices are prepared from the notice template, with audiences suggested from the map. Only members of the sender group for an audience may prepare a notice for it, and every notice is recorded against the degradation.

Continuity documents

The contact and escalation sheet, the recovery sequence (with a check that no record is restored before the things it depends on), the cyber incident sheet and the full continuity package are generated from the records each time they are opened. The cover of each document states the date to which its data is current.

Dashboard and reports

The dashboard presents drillable snapshots, each opening the section behind it. Reports on degradations, systems, data gaps and the change log can be filtered and exported.

Settings and permissions

  • Settings and bulk operations are restricted to users with the Administer Jira permission.
  • Restricted notices are governed by Jira group membership.
  • All permissions are enforced on the server.
  • If the EA Sphere licence for a site is inactive, the app remains available in read-only mode.

Version 1.0 limitations

  • Notices are prepared and recorded in EA Sphere and are sent from the sender’s own email.
  • Owners and contacts are entered as text rather than selected from Jira users.
  • Edit permissions apply to the app as a whole rather than to individual records.
  • Updates driven by Jira events, such as a completed issue delivering a record, can take up to three minutes to appear.

Getting help

Email support@renevell.com, or see the support page. For data handling, see Privacy and Security.