Generating test data in JIRA

For many production JIRA instances, it is often important to understand how it will perform under an anticipated load, how well it scales as the usage grows, and whether the hardware will be able to support the anticipated growth.

This can be tricky for new installations, as an empty JIRA cannot realistically provide any performance indication. In this recipe, we will look at how we can generate any arbitrary amount of test data to simulate an anticipated data size. For example, we will be able to measure the average response time and how long it takes to reindex the system.

Note

Use this recipe in your test environment. Do not use this in production.

Getting ready

For this recipe, we need to use the JIRA Data Generator add-on from Atlassian Labs. You can download this add-on at the following link:

https://marketplace.atlassian.com/plugins/com.atlassian.jira.plugins.jira-data-generator

How to do it…

Once the add-on is installed in JIRA, perform the following steps to generate test data:

1. Log in to JIRA as a JIRA administrator.
2. Navigate to Administration | System | Generate Metadata:
   
3. Set the number of projects and other metadata to generate.
4. Click on Generate and wait for the process to complete.
5. Select Generate Data.
6. Set the number of issues, comments, and other data that is to be generated.
7. Click on Generate and wait for the process to complete, as shown in the following screenshot:
   

How it works…

Generating test data in JIRA with the JIRA Data Generator add-on is a two-step process. We first need to create all the necessary configuration metadata such as custom fields and workflows and then create the issues.