Jira Data Center Fundamentals

Owned by Tamara Braun
Last updated: Jan 16, 2024 by Andreas Schmidt
2 min read

Connecting a self-hosted version of Jira (Server or Data Center) with a cloud-based solution like Microsoft 365 in both directions is not an easy task and requires some trade-offs.

Our apps are different to most other Atlassian apps and cannot be run locally on the Jira server.

They require a constant access to the yasoon platform:

  • If you are running a Jira Server behind the firewall without access to the internet, yasoon’s apps are not the right solution for you.

  • When working with a firewall, it might be an option to whitelist our IP adresses.

Cloud app for Data Center

The Data Center version of the apps are basically the same as the Cloud version - just packaged differently to run on Data Center.

To achieve this, yasoon has recreated the Atlassian Cloud Extensibility (AP) for Data Center.
That means, yasoon is hosting the app, all content is processed by yasoon services and settings are stored in the yasoon database. You can validate that by analyzing the issue view. Every view related to the app is embedded as an iFrame hosted on *.yasoon.com.

Notable features of the Atlassian Cloud Extensibility that have been recreated:

  • Lifecycle events when the app has been installed/updated including a secret exchange

  • JWT to verify the current user & context

  • Javascript API for the iFrame to communicate with the current host page

Pros & Cons of the concept

✅ Given the market trend, yasoon develops Cloud first. With the approach to run the Cloud app on Data Center, it does not fall behind and customers get most of the new features.

✅ The Jira admin is not able to get unintentional Microsoft privileges.

✅ The user-interface and features are locked with the installed app version. There are no “silent” UI updates for the users. It is still resilient for changes on Microsoft 365. Especially Microsoft Teams constantly changes and yasoon takes care of it in the background.

✅ Easy migration into the Cloud

❌ Requires an external connection to and from the yasoon platform (see above)

❌ OAuth1.0a user access tokens are stored on the yasoon infrastructure. While yasoon does not store the Jira data and only process data for current workflows, the app has more priviliges that cannot be limited. Might not be suitable depending on the type of data stored in Jira.