confluence addon licensing question on backup rstores

Question

We have a confluence server instance that we are migrating to another server. A backup of the original server was made and restored to new server, no problem. We needed to download the various addon/macros, and when we did so i expected we would need to get eval licenses for each until we got things all set up, but instead it is using the licenses from 1st server. Is this OK? I don't want to have my production licenses somehow disabled due to them also being used on our 2nd machine during buildup. We will be turning of 1st machine once 2nd machine is up and running.

Zak Laughton · Answer

Hi Jay!

You shouldn't run into any issues during the migration if you are using the license on both machines. You can only use it on one production instance at a time under the license agreement, but any overlap during a migration will not cause a conflict.

As a side note, I notice you are using the XML backup to migrate to a new server. This typically isn't recommended for production instances, since it's a less complete backup, and the XML backup/restore process is resource intensive.

Instead, you may be interested in following the steps on Migrating Confluence Between Servers. This let's you restore Confluence as a direct 1:1 copy of your original, without the need to re-install plugins and licenses. If you're also migrating the database, you can also see the steps on Migrating to Another Database.

I hope this helps!
– Zak

Brant Schroeder · Answer

Jay,

I have experienced the same issue before on a migration.  Technically the license will run on both machines but you are out of your license agreement.  I am also unsure for how long they will run in parallel before it complains.  The last time we stood up our instance on new hardware we ran them concurrent for a couple of days.  We then updated the old server instance with developer licenses until we were ready to turn it off.  If you are truly migrating to a new machine then you shouldn't need to run both with production licenses very long since you should only be using one as a production instance.