Jira update process overly stupid?

Question

Short answer: YES!

Who runs Jira on their local machine? Why do I have to download the files from the Jira website and then upload them to the EC2 instance? And why can't the Jira, once installed download its own updates?? Needles to ask why can it not also update itself??? The year is 2020 where we can update space stations on the fly...and I have to waste 1 hour for a damn upgrade?!

Daniel Eads · Answer

Hey there, welcome to the Community.

The Jira upgrader requires you to run the installer/upgrade executables locally on the server for security reasons. The screen you're seeing is a bit deceptive as Jira Core / Jira Software cannot be running on separate versions from one another, but it's possible to run Jira Core without Jira Software and add it at a later time (that's what this screen is for).

As running the upgrader requires SSH access (or RDP if you are running on Windows), most administrators choose to download the installer directly on the server using wget. Depending on the complexity of the install, some administrators choose to deploy in docker/kubernetes environments and replace the image during an upgrade. Many Jira installations are customized to the point of needing to merge file changes into the base install after upgrade; the upgrader running locally will let you know if any customizations like this exist and which files they are.

Having worked with a variety of enterprise-grade software over the years, an hour is pretty good for a production upgrade. Many other enterprise tools require more extensive testing and downtime for upgrades than Jira for upgrades on similarly-sized userbases.

I would suggest that if an hour for a production upgrade is outside the scope of your expectations, maybe Jira Cloud might be a better fit for your organization. In Cloud, Atlassian handles system maintenance and uptime, while Jira Cloud is always up-to-date as a SaaS offering.

Cheers,
Daniel | Atlassian Team