I want to upgrad 6.4 license to increase users - do we have to upgrade to JIRA software?

[Joanne]

We need to increase or user license for our currently installed 6.4 JIRA (installed last March) - do we have to upgrade to JIRA software in order to do this?  I am talking with customer service but it seems they are answering every question bar the ones I ask...

[Joanne]

So confusing as the question raised with customer service - do I HAVE to upgrade to JIRA software in order to increase my license from 500 to 2,000?  i just received an answer from them:-

Yes, as the default migration path for all JIRA customers was to JIRA Software. We've selected this option as we've found that the majority of JIRA customers are using JIRA for software development.

If you're using JIRA for software development, you'll want upgrade to JIRA Software. The detailed upgrade instructions for JIRA Software are located in the Atlassian Migration hub here.

[WeAreAllJustinNow]

I agree with you that this response is confusing. I must admit that I don't think that the agent really understood the question as it seems like the answer is for another question we get asked a lot. I am sorry that has happened. As a Support Engineer, I can say this much - when you upgrade your license to accommodate 2000 users, you will be, in essence, buying a JIRA Software license. This entitles you to upgrade to JIRA Software *if you want to*, but you *do not have to upgrade to use the license*. I can say this with certainty and have tested it out myself. This is by design to make life easier for people who can't migrate to JIRA 7 right now. JIRA Software licenses are backwards compatible with both JIRA 6.x and JIRA Agile as per that matrix I linked you earlier. You will be good to go when you get your license upgraded. If you do run into problems raise a support ticket at support.atlassian.com and we will jump in and get you going.

[WeAreAllJustinNow]

Back in October, we rolled out a new licensing structure to work with the release of JIRA 7 which packages JIRA into three new products - JIRA Software, JIRA Service Desk, and JIRA Core.  What this means is that if you buy a new license or renew your existing one, it will be one of the new licenses.  If you currently have JIRA and JIRA Agile your license will become a JIRA Software license. This page explains the changes in detail: https://confluence.atlassian.com/migration/jira-7/server_jira+agile_license-upgrade.

It is important to note that the license change does not mean that you will have to upgrade your actual version of JIRA.  The new licenses are backwards compatible with JIRA 6.x and JIRA Agile, so you can just replace your old license with the new one and keep on truckin':  https://confluence.atlassian.com/migration/jira-7/jira-license-compatibility-matrix.  

[Błażej O_]

No, you don't have to. You can use any JIRA version that has been released before the end of your maintenance period. If you want you can even switch to old version like 4.0, but who would want to do that

[Deleted user]

Upgrading your JIRA license (users) and upgrading your JIRA version are different tasks. You can do either one independently.

Visit https://my.atlassian.com/product for your Atlassian Licenses