Jira Projects migration from Server to Datacenter

[Soumya Subudhi]

Hello,

Our team is planning to migrate Jira projects from one server to another data center. I want to know what is the best way to migrate the projects with out any configuration/data/history loss.

Please let me know if any one has the best solution.

Customer is not ready to buy any plugin for this activity.

[Radek Dostál · Accepted solution]

Without any plugin, if you want to do this out of box, it's going to be painful, depending on how customized and how many projects you have.

Out of box, you would create an application data backup (xml), which you then need to move to your destination such as jira_home/import/my_backup.zip

This xml backup does not contain attachments, so you also need to either zip up the attachments folder from source and unzip it in destination, or symlink it if you're able to, this needs to be jira_home/import/attachments; in the exact same format and structure as on source (because attachment references in the .xml contain the path to the attachment).

Additionally, when you are restoring projects from the backup, it only restores issue data - meaning the project must already be configured and set up with all the appropriate schemes such as workflows, custom fields, in order for the project data to be restored.

All that said, it is of course hugely recommended to first try this out on a separate testing environment. Imports don't generally cause problems, but if it dies from memory or throws some kind of an exception, it can leave you leftover data after a failed import which could be difficult to clean up, so being able to test this first on a non-production instance can save you a lot of headache and potential downtime to clean up production with sql.

You should also brace yourself for other bugs which you may have to fix in your backup - this could be anything from 4byte characters, to wrong data format of version picker values, to wrong timestamp formats, to duplicate users, to bugged out issue history, to anything else. If it's a relatively fresh or small instance, you probably would not need to do any ad hoc fixes, but with old and large instances it's more often than not the case.

My best experience is with using https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1211147/project-configurator-for-jira?hosting=datacenter&tab=overview which generates a smaller backup file, and does include configuration, so you don't have to waste time on manually setting everything up. It also has it's caveats if your instances are configured differently, but it eases things up a lot. However, from what I remember it does not allow you to import projects on an evaluation license (unless I am mistaken and/or it changed). There may however be other apps that do support imports with evaluation, if your migration activity will not span over more than a few months.

If you only need to do a handful of projects, you should be fine without plugins when you get the hang of it, but if you are migrating many projects it's horror.

The official documentation covers above in some detail, such as what files need to be moved where: https://confluence.atlassian.com/adminjiraserver/restoring-a-project-from-backup-938847691.html

And of course, the disclaimer that both instances must be the same version, you must have the same plugin versions too, etc., good to check with that document there, but if anything is misaligned Jira will be quick to let you know and not allow you to continue importing so no biggies if you miss something.

Just to say from experience, if you've never migrated projects between instances it could be get a bit sweaty to start up, but it can be done with some patience.

[Soumya Subudhi]

Thanks a lot for the solution in detail @Radek Dostál . Let me check with my team and will start on this activity.

[ChristopherChilds]

How do you approach this upgrade with the need to re-purchase plugins.

As I understand we need to purchase the Data Center version of the plugins when upgrading. Does this mean, say if we were to buy a new license a month before an upgrade we will need to pay for a new Data Center version of the plugin for the upgrade; therefore incurring almost double cost of the plugin?

[Radek Dostál]

You can migrate between Server and Data Center, in either direction, in terms of "migrations" it's the same "deployment".

There is no need to do any upscaling. In terms of plugins you certainly don't require to buy any licenses either if you don't plan on using them (there are workarounds to avoid import validation errors).

If you're asking in general though, going from Server to DC you do have to have a valid DC license to spin things up afterward, if we're talking about production licenses. That is though one lengthy and different activity so I'd recommend reading up Atlassian guides on upgrading to DC, do a test with evaluation licenses first somewhere safe, and when you know you're ready and can do this with production, get in touch with Atlassian to plan your upgrade date. As far as I know you can specify the date when you need your license to be upgraded so that you can co-term it with your upgrade. There might be an overlap and maybe not an exact day (I don't really do license upgrades/purchases), but you don't need to pay for higher DC cost a month before it. We've at least always been able to co-term things when needed, Atlassian are pretty helpful in that regard.