Atlassian has pushed out Jira Software 8.5 and Jira Service Desk 4.5 Enterprise releases for Server and Data Center.
Enterprise releases are designed for large, self-managed systems and typically receive backported security updates and critical bug fixes for a period of two years. Users who can’t jump on new versions regularly are recommended to use the hardened Enterprise releases and periodically upgrade to the accompanying bug fix versions until the next Enterprise package is out.
Enterprise releases are designed for large, self-managed systems and typically receive backported security updates and critical bug fixes for a period of two years. Users who can’t jump on new versions regularly are recommended to use the hardened Enterprise releases and periodically upgrade to the accompanying bug fix versions until the next Enterprise package is out.
The last long-term-support releases, v7.13 and 3.16, came out in November 2018. Users of its predecessors, Jira Software 7.6 and Service Desk 3.9, will have to think about updating soon, since those were released in November 2017 and will therefore reach the end of their support period in the next couple of weeks.
The current releases are feature identical to Jira Software 8.4 and Jira Service Desk 4.4, since the development team used the release cycle on additional testing and hardening to have the releases certified from the start. Enterprise customers that feel that their 7.x/3.x installs could be a little faster should definitely look into the new LTS release, since the 8.x/4.x branches are built on a new engine that could lead to better performance.
Other features that made their way into the last couple of versions and can now be accessed in the Enterprise release are support for content delivery networks and individual caching servers, templates for third-party CDNs, and capabilities to archive information on a project as well as on an issue level.
Admins now have the option of distributing the Jira Server mobile app to teams via a Mobile Device Management solution, which should help with complying with restrictions such as using it only on approved devices. On top of that Jira Service Desk has been fitted with a new portal and received updates in areas like SLA calendars and automation.
The team also released official Docker templates for Jira and improved Jira Data Center deployment on Microsoft Azure and AWS. A more detailed list of changes can be found in the tools release notes.