System requirements

Just like any software applications, there is a set of base requirements that need to be met before you can install and run JIRA, so it is important for you to be familiar with these requirements so you can plan out your deployment successfully. Note that these requirements are for a behind-the-firewall deployment. Atlassian also offers a SaaS based alternative called Atlassian OnDemand http://www.atlassian.com/software/ondemand/overview.

Hardware requirements

For evaluation purposes, where there will only be a small number of users, JIRA will run happily on a normal workstation computer that has a 1.5 GHz processor and 256 MB to 512 MB of RAM. As a matter of fact, many organizations start their JIRA from a simple desktop and eventually migrate onto a proper server hardware.

For production deployment, as most applications, it is recommended that you run JIRA on its own dedicated server. There are many factors that you should consider when deciding how much resource to allocate to JIRA, and also keep in mind how JIRA will scale and grow. When deciding on your hardware needs, you should consider the following:

• Number of users in the system

• Number of issues and projects in the system

• Number of concurrent users, especially during peak hours

It can be difficult at times to estimate these figures, so as a reference, a server running with 2.0+ GHz of dual/quad CPU and 1 GB of RAM will be sufficient for most instances with around 200 users. Starting with JIRA 5.1, JIRA has significantly improved its performance and scalability, especially for large deployments. It is now able to handle more than 250 thousand issues with ease.

Officially, JIRA only supports x86 hardware and 64 bit derivatives of it. When running JIRA on a 64 bit system, you will be able to allocate more than 4 Gb of memory to JIRA, a limit if you are using a 32 bit system. So, if you are planning to deploy a large instance, it is recommended that you use 64 bit.

Software requirements

JIRA has four requirements when it comes to software. It needs to run on top of an operating system, and a Java environment. It needs an application server to host and serve its contents, and a database to store all of its data. In the following sections, we will discuss each of these components and the options that you have to install and run JIRA with.

Operating systems

JIRA supports most of the major operating systems, so the choice of which operating system to run JIRA on becomes a matter of expertise, comfort, and in most cases, existing organization IT infrastructure and requirements.

The operating systems supported by Atlassian are Windows and Linux. There is a distribution for Mac OSX, however, it is not officially supported. With both Windows and Linux, Atlassian provides an executable installer wizard package that bundles all the necessary components to simplify the installation process (only available for standalone distribution).

There are minimal differences when it comes to installing, configuring, and maintaining JIRA on different operating systems. So, if you do not have any preferences and would like to keep the initial cost down, Linux is a good choice.

Java platforms

JIRA is a Java-based web application, so it needs to have a Java environment installed. This can be a Java Development Kit (JDK) or a Java Runtime Environment (JRE). The executable installer that comes with Windows or Linux contains the necessary files and will install and configure the JRE for you. However, if you want to use the archive distributions, you will need to make sure that you have the required Java environment installed and configured.

JIRA 5 supports Java 6 or 1.6, from update 18 and above. If you run JIRA on an unsupported Java version, including its patch version, you may run into unexpected errors.

Java platforms	Support status
Oracle JDK/JRE	1.6 (update 18 or higher is required, update 24 or higher is recommended). 1.7 is supported starting with JIRA 5.2.

Databases

JIRA stores all its data in a relational database. While you can run JIRA with HSQLDB, the in-memory database that comes bundled with JIRA, it is prone to data corruption. For this reason, it is important that you use an enterprise database for production systems.

Most relational databases available in the market today are supported by JIRA, and there are no differences when you install and configure JIRA. Just like operating systems, your choice of database will come down to your IT staff's expertise, experience, and established corporate standards. If you run Windows as your operating system, then you might probably want to go with Microsoft SQL Server. On the other hand, if you run Linux, then you should consider Oracle (if you already have a license), MySQL, or PostgreSQL.

The following table summarizes the list of databases that are currently supported by JIRA. It is worth mentioning that both MySQL and PostgreSQL are open source products, so they are excellent options if you are looking to minimize your initial investments:

Database	Support status
MySQL	MySQL 5.x (excluding 5.0) Requires JDBC Connector/J 5.1
PostgreSQL	PostgreSQL 8.3, 8.4 Requires PostgreSQL Driver 8.4.x
Microsoft SQL Server	SQL Server 2008 SQL Server 2005 Requires JTDS 1.2.4 driver
Oracle	Oracle 11g Requires Oracle 11.2.x driver
HSQLDB	Bundled with standalone distribution

Take a special note of the driver requirements on each database, as some drivers that come bundled with the database vendor are not supported. If you are using the standalone distributions, the necessary drivers are included with JIRA.

Application servers

Unlike the previous versions of JIRA, JIRA 5 officially only supports Apache Tomcat as the application server. While it is possible to deploy JIRA into other application servers, you will be doing this at your own risk.

The following table shows the versions of Tomcat that are supported by JIRA 5:

Application server	Support status
Apache Tomcat	Tomcat 5.5.27 – 5.5.29 Tomcat 6.0.32 Tomcat 7.0.29 is supported starting JIRA 5.2