Posted On: Apr 7, 2022
AWS is announcing an integration between AWS AppConfig and Jira in the Atlassian Marketplace. The integration allows feature flags from AWS AppConfig to be tracked in Atlassian’s Jira as individual issues, making it easier for teams to track the release of new capabilities of their software. AWS AppConfig is a feature of AWS Systems Manager. This integration is being announced at the Atlassian Team '22 conference in Las Vegas.
Feature-flagging is a powerful software technique that allows engineers to release updates in a safer way. A feature is pushed out to production, but is hidden behind a feature flag, stored as configuration data. No users can access the feature until the feature flag is toggled “on.” Once the team is ready to release the feature, it can be released to a small set of users first, and operational impact can be measured just for that cohort. If operational metrics look good, the flag can be toggled on for more users, gradually being released until all users have the new feature. AWS AppConfig Feature Flags also have additional safety guard rails, including flag constraints and validators, which allow flag content to be checked for accuracy prior to being deployed. Other safety guard rails include the ability to automatically rollback a flag if a specified CloudWatch alarm is triggered.
With this integration, customers can configure AWS AppConfig and Jira to have each feature flag tracked in Jira as a separate issue. Any updates to the feature flag will be tracked in Jira. This allows teams to use Jira to have visibility into all of the issues and tasks that it takes to release a new feature, including what is often the last step: toggling the feature flag to on and rolling it out to customers.
This new capability is available at no extra cost for AWS AppConfig and Jira users, and is available in all AWS Regions except AWS GovCloud (US) Regions and AWS China Regions. You can find information about how to set up this integration in AWS documentation and in the Atlassian Marketplace.
To learn more about using AWS AppConfig Feature Flags, read our blog post.