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Migration of JIRA Service Management to the Cloud

John Black

We are currently testing a migration from Jira Service Management (Data Center) to Jira Service Management Cloud.

Our Data Center environment has a very basic setup with only a few JSM projects.

In Cloud, we subscribed to a Service Management collection, as we plan to have several agents serving clients. We are now attempting a test migration using the Jira Cloud Migration Assistant.

However, the Migration Assistant is returning an error indicating that Jira must be installed in the Cloud site. When we attempt to install Jira, the system prompts us to purchase an additional license, separate from our Jira Service Management subscription.

Could you please clarify what we might be misunderstanding in this setup?

Our expectation was that Jira Service Management Cloud would include the necessary Jira platform functionality and that we would only need Service Management agent licenses — not a separate Jira license.

How can we proceed without purchasing an additional Jira license, and ensure that only Service Management agent licenses are required?

Accepted answers

Trudy P Claspill

Hello @John Black

JSM Cloud does include core Jira platform technology - the concepts of Spaces/Projects, Issue Types, Fields, etc. are part of the infrastructure of both Jira and JSM.

With JSM Cloud the platform will support only Service projects. With a Jira Cloud subscription you get support for Software and Business projects. You have to subscribe to both to get support for all three types of projects.

In your DC instance are all your project Service projects? Do you have any Software or Business projects? Do you have both Jira Software and JSM installed on your DC instance?

What version of JSM are you using on your DC instance, and what version of the JCMA app do you have installed.

All comments

Trudy P Claspill

Hello @John Black

JSM Cloud does include core Jira platform technology - the concepts of Spaces/Projects, Issue Types, Fields, etc. are part of the infrastructure of both Jira and JSM.

In your DC instance are all your project Service projects? Do you have any Software or Business projects? Do you have both Jira Software and JSM installed on your DC instance?

What version of JSM are you using on your DC instance, and what version of the JCMA app do you have installed.

John Black

Hi @Trudy P Claspill

Thanks for your quick reply

All our DC projects are Service projects

Yes we have both JIRA Software and JSM installed. I was under impression that there was no way to install JSM without JIRA.

11.3.2 with latest JCMA that supports v11

Trudy P Claspill

I have executed a scenario where the DC instance had both Jira and JSM and the Cloud instance had only JSM.

What is the specific error that you get? Can you provide a screen image?

What options have selected in your migration plan?

John Black

Hi @Trudy P Claspill

All project data for one project

Skip plans

Only dashboards linked to selected projects specified in gadgets or dashboard permissions

Only automation rules related to selected projects

All object schemas (we have only 1)

Only customers related to the selected projects and object schemas

Only users and groups related to the selected projects and object schemas

Preserve group membership

All apps

The error is during Pre-migration checks

"Checking for Jira availability in cloud"

Arkadiusz Wroblewski

@John Black you're not misunderstanding.

JSM Cloud already includes the Jira “platform” (projects, issue types, fields, workflows, etc.). You shouldn’t need a separate Jira license just to run service projects.

What’s biting you here is the JCMA precheck “Checking for Jira availability in cloud”. That check can get triggered even when you’re migrating only service projects, usually because something in the migration scope looks like it needs “Jira” on the target site (old boards/filters/dashboards/gadgets, or some app/config artifact that the assistant interprets as Jira Software/Business territory).

So, two practical paths:

Do the DB checks from the KB (the one Trudy referenced). That’s the cleanest way to identify exactly what object is triggering the precheck.

Yes, using a Jira trial for testing can work.

Enable a Jira trial on the Cloud site, rerun the migration, and you’ll usually get past that availability check. After the test migration, you can cancel Jira again as long as you’re only using service projects and nothing migrated depends on Jira Software/Business features.

Just be aware: you may still hit another check later around user/licensing counts depending on what users/groups you migrate.

Have a great Day 🤠

Dr_ Ankita Mehta-OpsHub_ Inc

Hi @John Black

This usually causes confusion because JSM Cloud includes the Jira platform, but the site must have the base Jira product provisioned correctly before migration. A few things to check:

Ensure the Cloud site was created as a JSM site (not just a user subscription added later).
Confirm the base Jira platform is active; JSM runs on it, but sometimes provisioning lags.
Verify you’re not attempting to install Jira Software separately; that’s a different product.
Double-check site-level admin permissions before running the migration assistant.

In your case, you may want to explore OpsHub Migration Manager (OMM), an Atlassian Solutions Partner, It supports phased or full migrations, avoids licensing validation blockers, and preserves comments, attachments, and relationships without downtime or disruption.

Hope it helps!

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