Jira 6 when to upgrade from v5.15

Question

Back in November 2012 we upgraded to v5.15 from v3.   This was a big upgrade and took some time to accomplish.   The IT desk has now been asked to investigate upgrading to v6, but I am reluctant to do this so soon after release.   Can anyone comment on a safe time to review v6 upgrade in terms of stability and bug fixes?

Thanks

LucasA · Answer

Hi Tommy,

Yes, the first releases of a newer major version usually contains lots of bugs. From JIRA 5.0 onwards, in my opinion, a good time to evaluate a new majorversion is when it reaches the .5 minor release (I.E. 5.2.5). I would migrate a production environment only when a major release reaches its last minor version (I.E. upgrade only on JIRA 5.1.8 or JIRA 5.2.11), but on the .5 minor release, all the critical (and annoying) bugs has been already fixed.

Best regards,
Lucas Timm

Tommy Mateides · Answer

Hi Lucas

Many thanks for this information.  The upgrade wouldnt be a problem I just wanted to understand when it would be a good time to upgrade, as I know that new versions often encounter a few bugs are updates.    With v5 we waiting until 300 bugs were fixed and went with v5.15 (5 months since release).   Would the same pricipal apply with v6?  and should we wait until v6.1 before taking the plunge?

Thanks

LucasA · Answer

Hi Tommy,

JIRA 3.13 had lots of properties that no longer exist on newer versions, its user management is a way different than 4.3+ versions, plugins used to write its settings on the same tables that JIRA does, etc. This is the reason why is so hard and time wasting upgrading from JIRA 3.13 to any newer version.

From JIRA 5.1.x to JIRA 6, there was no major changes on the database schema, and both use the same user management on backend, so the upgrade will be smoother and can be performed automatically.

The links below will help you with this task:
- https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/JIRA/Upgrading+JIRA
- https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/JIRA/Upgrading+JIRA+Using+a+Rapid+Upgrade+Method

Best regards,
Lucas Timm