Jira Upgrade from 6.3.13 to 7.13.2 and combining the existing Jira Service desk

Vishwas

Hello,

We are upgrading a Jira from 6.3.13 to 7.13.2 can anyone suggest me the upgrade path.And also we have a Jira Service desk 7.6.1 and we are planning on combining both the applications and migrate them from our servers to AWS. Suggest me a method to achieve bringing the data to one single application. And also we have done some modifications in .jsp files and .vm files in Jira 6.3.13, so I want to know if those remain same after upgrade or do we need to rework on those files.

Earl McCutcheon

Hello,

First there are a few different phases here, and we are looking at Two separate upgrade paths, a data merge of two systems, and data Migrations to a new platform.  So, just to make 100% sure I have all the details correct I want to restate your configuration and plan: you have one server configured with Jira 6.3.13 your planning on upgrading to 7.13.2 and you have a secondary installation of Jira Service Desk 7.6.1 installed as a independent standalone installation on a different server and the plan is upgrade the service desk instance to a compatible version with the other upgraded instalation and combine the two servers into one installed instance and migrate to an AWS deployment and maintain customizations in the process let me know if I read that correctly or missed any critical info.

Next, A few points to clarify that will change the steps slightly:

1. Is the Jira 6.3.13  installation jira + Agile or just Jira, and have you ever installed Service desk on this server (even for testing)? This relates to the database bables as covered in https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JSDSERVER-4732
2. Jus the Service desk Installation Service desk Only or a Service Desk + Software deployment?

Next as a referance point please refer to the following Upgrade Guide articles and the Release notes that go into more detail on the install requirements and the Upgrade task requirements you will need to consider in the upgrade process, for the steps to upgrade from a pre7 the to a 7+ version of Jira and Let us know if you have any additional questions about any part of the upgrade documentation, the following guides would be the best point of referance for the overall picture of what you will need to do:

• Upgrading Jira applications
  
  • Latest material for upgrades and best practices
• Jira 7 Migration HUB
  
  • Notes on upgrade tasks and post upgrade configurations for a 6.x to 7.0 version
• Jira Software release & Upgrade notes
  
  • Notes on the features and release specific requirements
• Upgrade Guide for JIRA 7.2
  • This is a guide we put together a while back when 7.2 was the latest version, but it details instructions and tips for upgrading from a 6.x to 7.2, and you can interchange 7.2 with 7.any later version and follow the same process, there are special notes on this guide about the Jira + Agile upgrade versions and upgrade task points to look at

From the Articles above a critical point to focus on for the upgrade tasks is you will want to go through an intermediary 7.0.X version of Jira for the upgrade tasks as there are changes to the upgrade tasks in 7.1 and later that will cause a lot of trouble if missed:

If you're using JIRA and JIRA Agile, and you want to upgrade to the latest version of JIRA Software, we recommend you upgrade to JIRA Software 7.0 first. We recommend the following upgrade path:
JIRA + JIRA AGILE → JIRA SOFTWARE 7.0 → JIRA SOFTWARE 7.2 → (latest version)
(info) The recommended, intermediary upgrade version is necessary due to upgrade tasks that were removed in JIRA Software 7.1.0.

When upgrading it is always recommended to upgrade to the latest minor version in any major version line to be on the most stable release in that chain, in the format (Release Version).(Major Version).(Minor Version), as an exe the latest minor version in the jira 7.0.X line is 7.0.11

Next, if you have JIRA Service Desk Installed or ever have installed the application previously on the 6.X version to trial it you Must Upgrade to a jira 7.0.X version with the matching Service Desk 3.0.X version installed, otherwise the Service Desk application will miss required upgrade tasks and no longer function when you are attempting to merge the two instances.  Please note as well that Service desk data cannot currently pe migrated to a new instance as a project import as this will come into play when merging the data please see:

• https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JSDSERVER-2741
• If you have service desk on both platforms you will be required to import Service desk data in one direction to the software install You would be able to import issues into Jira Service Desk using CSV or JSON, OR look into the add-on ScriptRunner which has a "Copy Project" feature that can be used as a workaround

So with all the above notes and your noted configuration the Recommended path for your 6.3.13 to 7.13.2 upgrade would be as follows:

1. Set up a staging Jira Software 7.0.11 installation, locally (Not on AWS yet) fully configured with a temporary admin that will be overwritten later on
   1. NOTE also install Service desk 3.0.11 if Service Desk was installed on the 6.x server, if not disregard
2. On the 7.X staging server Apply the noted backup and indexing restrictions to speed up the intermediary upgrade point covered in the Upgrade Guide for JIRA 7.2 
   1. with the warning that none of the Projects or issues will be displayed after you migrate to the staging server with this enabled until you reindex the system, and no backups are created before you upgrade so the instance in in a disposable state at this point
3. On the 6.X instance run the Add-on compatibility check tool 
   1. manually install the upgraded versions of the compatible add-ons on the staged 7.X instance
   2. Reach out to the add-on vendors for any that are listed incompatible for any instructions on additional requirements to upgrade that app to a compatible version with Jira 7+
   3. Uninstall any apps that do not have a version upgrade possible before migrating
4. Create an XML backup of the 6.X and migrate the instance to the 7.X staging server copying over your customizations As Covered Here
5. Upgrade the Instance to the desired 7.13.2 version
6. Disable the modifications applied at step 2 above from the Upgrade Guide for JIRA 7.2 restart
7. Upgrade all add-on apps
8. trigger a Full lock and re-index
9. review the application configurations and setting to verify the upgrade was successful and no errors occurred Additional Details on what to do can be seen in the Migration Hub 

Next for the Service Desk Server and the AWS migration / Data merge, Optimally if the 6.X installation did not have any Service desk data you can upgrade Service Desk to the compatible version with your staging server, then migrate the Service desk instance to the ASW installation, install jira Software and then migrate the Software data over with a project import, which would look like this:

1. Upgrade Service Desk,
   1. Service desk needs to be on version 3.16.2 to be compatible with the desired 7.13.2 version
2. Set Up the AWS container as covered in:
   1. Jira products on AWS
   2. Getting started with JIRA on AWS
   3. Quick Start Deployment Guide
3. Migrate the Service Desk Instance to the AWS deployment First
4. Install Jira Software with the Service Desk instance on the AWS deployment
5. Use project imports to migrate the 7.3.13 Staging server data to the AWS deployment to merge the two instances 
   1. Additional details can be seen in Merging Jira instances
6. At this point you should be good to go with will everything migrated over to AWS and merged together 

Following the above methods should do the trick but if you also have additional service desk data in the original 6.X server that data would need to be moved over to the AWS container via the previously noted CSV ,  JSON, OR ScriptRunner with the "Copy Project" feature.

Regards,
Earl