MAXWELL AFB-GUNTER ANNEX, Ala. -- The BES Atlassian Toolset (BAT) is a managed service that provides software that enables the Agile Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) that customers use to plan, track, and release DoD and Air Force software.
At its core, the BAT is the Business and Enterprise Systems (BES) workflow engine that programs use to track issues or tasks through a predefined and customizable workflow that supports 2,000 users across 173 projects and 608 spaces in support of BES and Air Force Materiel Command A4 – Logistics managed Defense Business Systems.
To enable agile methods across the Directorate, Richard Aldridge, the Business and Enterprise Systems Program Executive Officer, took action to stand up the capability under the Services Management Division led by Services Management Division Chief, David Sampson.
In the past 15 months, the BAT has transformed from a simple collection of Atlassian products and a handful of plug-in applications to a well-tuned Information Technology apparatus managed by the BAT Integrated Program Office (IPO) serving the needs of program management, software development, and support functions (e.g., testing, cybersecurity, engineering).
The IPO is comprised of dedicated civilian, military, and contractor personnel from the BES Agile Services Service Office, BES Platform Operations South, BES DevSecOps (DSO) Service Office, BES Cybersecurity Services Division, and our partners in the Air Force Materiel Command/A4N (AVLog) Directorate.
In the past year alone, utilizing its Agile approach, the BAT has deployed three large maintenance patch releases, nine minor releases, and 21 operational updates.
The most recent activity was the deployment of the February 2023 Maintenance Patch, aka Operation Heart Strings, which updated all four Atlassian components, 22 third-party plug-in applications, and a variety of system updates, and configuration changes to resolve performance and cybersecurity issues.
The Jira and Jira Service Management component updates encompassed a wide variety of system and functional improvements, bug fixes and Long-Term Support (LTS) releases.
The Confluence and BitBucket component updates also encompassed a wide variety of system and functional improvements and bug fixes. Although no new plug-in applications were deployed during this patch, significant system and functional updates and bug fixes were seen throughout the updates, especially with the Zephyr Test Management plug-ins for Jira and Confluence, and the Control Freak plug-in for BitBucket.
A full accounting of these updates, including the updates to the plug-ins, is located in the BAT Release Notes section of the Agile Services Knowledge Base.