JIRA Migration of v6.4 + plugins) from old 32-bit server to New 64-bit server

Question

Hi,

We are in the process of migrating JIRA (v6.4.12) from an old RHEL 32-bit server to an RHEL 64 bit server.  Database is Oracle and we use the Tempo and Zeptyr plugins. We have a couple of questions:

1: Is it possible to just copy the jira folders (i.e. jira and jira-inst) from the old server to the new server or should we do a fresh install of our current version (6.4) and then migrate the existing version to the new installation?

2: Should we use database (Oracle) level backups or the JIRA import\export tools. Particularly since we use Tempo?

3: If we have to do a fresh install, should we install the most recent version of JIRA and perform an update as part of the migration?

Thanks for your help.

John

Maurice_y014q5 · Answer

Hi John,

Great questions, you will need to copy over the attachments directory, as well as the avatars directory if you are using custom avatars. You should copy the attachments over before loading the database backup.

We want the attachments to be in the exact same file path as they were on the old system, this way the links in the database to these attachments does not get broken.

You do not need to copy the indexes over, those we will rather have Jira recreate.

That should be all you need to copy over, if you've made customizations in your server.xml(to use a proxy) this will need to be copied, but also likely modified for the new server. If you have changed your setenv.sh to include JVM startup options, you'll want to review these and see if they should be applied to the new server. This would be things such as the JVM heap memory(-xmx) settings.

Hope that clears things up!

Best regards,
Brian Cohen
Atlassian Support

John Rushe · Answer

Hi Brian,

Thank you for your reply.

So to be sure that I understand, the recommended approach is:

1 Install JIRA v6.4 and plugins on the NEW server, connected to a new empty database.
2: Perform a database level backup /recovery (i.e. export import) from the database on the old server to the database on the new server.
3: Copy over attachements directory(Is this required)?
4: Copy over index directory (Is this required)?
5: Is there anything else that needs to be copied from jira home directory on the old server?
6: Startup server
7: Upgrade to version 7.0.11.

Regards

Maurice_y014q5 · Answer

Hi John,

It would be best to do a fresh install on the new 64 bit server and then migrate the data. You'll want to ensure you have all the same plugins before importing the data. We recommend ensuring all plugins are up to date before starting this process so that you are migrating the data into the same versions of plugins and Jira.

After setting up the new server on Jira 6.4 you can take an XML backup in Jira and import that into the new instance. Alternatively you could use a native Oracle backup tool to copy the database. The Oracle level backup will likely be more reliable than using the Jira import/export, though we have customers using both methods regularly.

From here you'll want to upgrade Jira to version 7.0.11, note that you must do this step and can't upgrade directly to a version later than 7.0.

Once upgraded to 7.0.11 you can upgrade to any version. Just ensure your plugins are updated and compatible with any version of Jira you are upgrading to.

Here is a great upgrade planning guide:
Best practices guide for upgrading JIRA Software Server

We also have a Jira 7 Migration Hub which covers a lot of the changes moving from Jira 6 to Jira 7.

The best piece of advice to offer is ensure you test this process thoroughly so there are no surprises along the way!

Best regards,
Brian