Starting with JIRA 7, JIRA is split into three different products, and the term JIRA now refers to the common platform that all these products are built on. The three products that make up the new JIRA family are the following:
JIRA Core: This is similar to the classic JIRA, with all the field customizations and workflow capabilities. This is perfect for general-purpose task management.
JIRA Software: This is JIRA Core with agile capabilities (previously known as JIRA Agile). This is well suited for software development teams that want to use agile methodologies, such as Scrum and Kanban.
JIRA Service Desk: This is JIRA Core with service desk capabilities. This is designed for running JIRA as a support ticketing system, with a simplified user interface for the end users, and a focus on customer satisfaction with SLA goals.
As you can see, JIRA Core is at the center, providing all the base functionalities such as user interface customization, workflows, and e-mail notifications, while JIRA Software and JIRA Service Desk add specialized features on top of it.
In this book, we will mostly focus on JIRA Software. However, since JIRA Core provides many of the common features, most of the knowledge is also applicable to JIRA Core, and features that are only available to JIRA Software will be highlighted. For this reason, the term JIRA will be used to cover both JIRA Core and JIRA Software, unless a distinction is required. We will also cover JIRA Service Desk in Chapter 11, JIRA Service Desk.