HP Cuts Costs and Breaks Down Silos After Consolidating Jira Instances

One of the challenges of post-merger IT integration is managing disparate tools and platforms from various teams across organizations. We see this a lot with our clients, including global technology company HP. After numerous mergers and acquisitions, HP was managing multiple Jira instances across different business units and teams. Besides generating unnecessary costs, maintaining various instances led HP to experience inefficiencies, communication gaps, and team misalignment.

HP partnered with Praecipio to merge two Jira instances into a single, unified environment to optimize their Atlassian tools, break down silos, and minimize costs. 

HP faced a challenge familiar to many large organizations: siloed teams and disconnected tools. Because teams worked within multiple instances, they had to collaborate outside Jira, relying on email or messaging apps to share information and get work done. 

Another big reason HP needed to consolidate its Data Center environments was to save time and resources. HP was paying for the Atlassian tools and add-ons that lived in each instance, which cost them twice as much (and, in some cases, three times as much if they had the same add-on in three different instances). Consolidating users under one platform meant less administrative work, less auditing, and less money spent on unnecessary Atlassian licenses.

As a global organization with massive amounts of data, HP needed a partner with experience in enterprise-level migrations and mergers. 

HP brought on Praecipio to help address the challenges of post-merger IT integration and merge their Jira instances. Our proven track record of optimizing the Atlassian platform for businesses gave HP the confidence to partner with us. We started by analyzing HP’s different Atlassian environments to determine the amount of data and which add-ons needed to move to the target instance. Our team also verified the data’s compatibility and how to merge related custom fields and various schemes.

We set up daily standups with HP’s Jira admins, who were extremely knowledgeable of the instances and their intricacies. Establishing open lines of communication kept teams and stakeholders informed about the merger and important milestones. This also allowed the Praecipio and HP teams to quickly resolve any blockers that surfaced during the process. 

Using API calls and third-party applications like Appfire’s CMJ tool, we merged HP’s data from two instances into their live production environment. As with most migrations and mergers, it wasn’t all smooth sailing. With over half a million issues and attachments merging into the target instance, the amount of data proved challenging and extended the migration window longer than planned. Nonetheless, Praecipio tapped into our extensive resources to ensure we carried over all data successfully. 

After our rigorous testing processes to validate data integrity and instance performance, Praecipio used Postman to normalize users and provided a post-merger knowledge transfer to the HP team. The handoff was seamless, thanks to the strong relationships we established with HP’s Jira admins, who were highly engaged throughout the entire process. 

Establishing an IT integration strategy post-merger is a challenging process. However, Praecipio's experience with complicated mergers and migrations ensured that the process was seamless and efficient for HP. Establishing best practices for post-merger IT integration has helped HP reduce admin overhead, save on licensing costs, and align teams and work across the organization. Since consolidating their Jira instances, teams that previously worked in silos are now able to share issues and attachments and complete work without having to leave Jira. This has resulted in efficiency gains and improved collaboration across the organization. 

A unified Atlassian environment has provided a foundation for streamlined processes and improved data visibility, empowering HP to continue delivering innovative technology solutions that make life easier for everyone.