Migrating a project from JIRA v4.4.4 to JIRA v5.2.5

[Simone Longoni]

Hi!

We need to migrate a couple of JIRA projects (few thousands issues) from the old JIRA installation (v4.4.4, to be dismissed) to the new one (v5.2.5), where we have already another couple of tiny projects in place.

In the old JIRA instance we have no major customizations (i.e. custom fields, workflows, permissions) but issue do have information (like attachments, worklog, etc) that we want to preserve.

I was looking over internet to find the proper (minimal but complete) procedure to safely execute the migration but I haven't found any.

Could you please suggest one?

Thanks a lot,

Simone

[dleng · Accepted solution]

I think the only "safe" method is the project restoration from a backup. Create a xml backup of your source Jira 4.4.4, restore this backup into a JIRA 5.2.5, (versions have to be identical for project importing), create a xml backup of this 5.2.5, and then use your new target JIRA's project restore feature.
https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/JIRA/Restoring+a+Project+from+Backup

Its good that you do not have major customisations in your old JIRA, as you will need to manually recreate all the workflow schemes, users, groups, custom fields, issue types, statuses, priorities, resolutions, etc etc. (Yes its a long list, thats why restoring projects can be difficult)

Your attachments will be preserved if you create a backup of it, and then specify the backup in the Project Import tool.

PS: I forgot to add, this is probably the only way to do it safely.