What are heartbeats?

Heartbeats is a feature designed to monitor and ensure the health and regular functioning of your systems or applications integrated with Jira Service Management. Each heartbeat act as a check-in mechanism for these systems, helping to identify any issues or disruptions in their operations.

How heartbeats work?

Heartbeats regularly send signals from an external system to Jira Service Management. These signals confirm that the system is operational. If Jira Service Management receives these signals as expected, it indicates that the system is functioning correctly. However if a heartbeat signal is not received within a specified time frame, it suggests that there might be an issue with the system that sent the heartbeat. Jira Service Managemen then generates an alert to notify the relevant team or individual that the system may be down or experiencing problems.

Heartbeat intervals

Teams can configure the frequency at which heartbeats are expected, based on minutes, hours and days. This frequency can be adjusted based on the criticality of the system and operational requirements.

Heartbeat status:

The status of the heartbeat indicates the health and activity status of the systems or services they monitor. These statuses help in quickly identifying whether a monitored system is functioning correctly or if there are issues that need attention.

Pending: This status indicates that Jira Service Management is set up to receive heartbeats but has not yet received any pings. It's an initial state showing the system is waiting for the first heartbeat signal to determine the health status.

Responsive: This status indicates that the heartbeat is functioning correctly and as expected. Jira Service Management is receiving the heartbeat signals at the configured intervals, suggesting that the monitored system or service is operational.

Unresponsive: If a heartbeat has not been received for an extended period, far beyond the expected interval, the heartbeat status may be set to unresponsive. This status implies that the system may have been down for a significant amount of time or that the heartbeat configuration needs review.

Off: In some cases, heartbeats can be manually turned off. This status is used when maintenance or updates are being performed on the monitored system, and interruptions in the heartbeat signals are expected. Turning off the heartbeat prevents false alerts during these periods.