Jira cloud migration assistant assessment shows no alternative for app in cloud. What does it mean?

[yogesh_devi]

Hello,

I am planning to migrate JIRA ( Server Jira v8.13.0 ) to cloud.

Since I have a few apps installed on JIRA server  I use the cloud migration assistant to assess migration impact. ( I went through https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3cTyyqy46g ) 

I ran through the first step "Assess Your Apps" and I am struggling to determine if needed functionality is available in cloud.

The  cloud migration assistant , displays three column in the screen for  "Assess Your Apps" as below

column 1)  Status - A drop down that allows  selection between "needed in cloud", "not needed in cloud" , "use alternative", and "no decision made".  

column 2) An indicator that denotes if app "Exists in cloud " or not.

column 3) An indicator that denotes if app "Can be migrated "or not ( upgraded or as-is) 

The  utility and interplay of these three colums isn't clear.

For example if an "app" does not exist in cloud - as denoted by indicator in column 2 but still I need its functionality in cloud then should I be selecting "needed in cloud" in column 1 drop-down,   or should I select  "use alternative" ? 

How will the assistant treat these ?

To be more specific - consider below example of  JEditor plugin

My JIRA instance uses JEditor plugin and I need that functionality in cloud ( If I disable JEditor plugin then then HTML content is not rendered properly - the html tags show up in page instead of formatting) 

"Exists in cloud" indicator for "JEditor Plugin" shows a red "cross" . I selected "use alternative" in the drop-down in column 1 . (rather than selecting "Needed in cloud" )  

The assessment report in next step then tells me  there is "NO alternative available" for "JEditor Plugin" 

Does that mean that  the  functionality provided by JEditor ( rich text or html formatting in content rendered )  will no longer be available in cloud ? Or does it mean that while neither the same  plugin nor an alternative plugin is  available,  but functionality is still available in some other form ? 

And if the functionality isnt available at all,  then what is the point of allowing me to select "Needed in cloud" in column one drop down?  Shouldnt that be grayed out ?

Your inputs much appreciated - 

Many thanks for your help 

Best regards 

Yogesh 

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted solution]

The "needed in cloud" column is there for you to include the information in one place, not get the report and have to add it later when preparing to share with the rest of your organisation.

In the case of JEditor, your first thought is correct - there is no Cloud version of JEditor, and no-one has identified any app that provides anything similar.  (Probably because Cloud simply doesn't support the things you can do with a Server app, and JEditor-like functionality just isn't possible to code for)

Note that "exists in Cloud" is arguably quite misleading.  Just becasuse a vendor has created a Cloud version of an app, it does not necessarily mean you can just take all the data over automatically or that it does the same thing.

Server and Cloud are very different applications, they are not equivalent and apps work very differntly on them.  A very obvious example is Adaptavist's Scriptrunner - when we wrote the Cloud version, we actually started from scratch.  Scripts written for on side have to be rewritten totally, they can't just be carried across, and there are functions that simply cannot be done on Cloud (Atlassian didn't support it doing Conditions or Validators for a while, and there's no way to do Behaviours yet)

When there is an equivalent, that's not just "forget it because it will be automatically be the same as the server one" - you should still evaluate the new Cloud app for suitability and what can and cannot be migrated from Server.

[yogesh_devi]

Hi Nic, much approciate such detailed answer. Thanks a lot ! 

So in my case ( and everybody's case)  - test driving cloud versions is the only certain way to develop a clear understanding of behaviour in cloud

While cloud migration assistant makes an attempt to provide guidance, it provides a limited initial understanding.

Fair enough :-) 

Thanks again