Merging two cloud instances into one

[Betsy Edson]

We recently acquired another organization and are in the process of integrating all our our development systems & processes.  They currently use Jira cloud and JSM.  I'm looking for the best options for integrating our systems.  I have found several articles online, but looking for additional advice.  Do we manage 2 separate instances under a single organization/account? Do we import their projects into our instance?  What have others done? What went well? Not so well? 

[Robert Wen_ReleaseTEAM_ · Accepted solution]

Hi Betsy:

So what you probably have right now are sites in two organizations (your company and the acquired company).  The first step is probably to transfer all sites from the acquired company's organization to your company's organization.

After that, you need to look at whether to keep the sites separate or migrate projects to your company's sites.  There are no cut and dried answers here since there are a lot of variables in play including:

• What plans the products are at (Free, Standard, Premium, Enterprise)
• What Marketplace Apps are being used
• Is Atlassian Access/Managed Accounts in play

An Atlassian Solutions Provider can walk you through this process. (FULL DISCLOSURE: I work for such a Solutions Partner and have been giving this advice to clients)

Good luck!

[Betsy Edson]

Thank you.  This helps and clarifies that if I bring their site under our organization, it "buys me some time" to determine the best way to integrate the two.  I appreciate the insight.

[Elena Lurye · Accepted solution]

Hi @Betsy Edson ,

Note that combining these sites under one Org also requires you to take care of the user authentication.
Do you want to keep the "moved from" users under their original email domain, or you need to update their email addresses to the "move to" domain? To update the email addresses of managed users, it's required that both the old and new domains are verified within the same Atlassian Organization.
Before this can be done, multiple things also needs to be taken care of - you might want to refer to this Atlassian documentation - https://support.atlassian.com/organization-administration/docs/transfer-products-to-another-organization/#Transferproductstoanotherorganization-Transferchecklist

As @Robert Wen_ReleaseTEAM_  mentioned, multiple things are at play, and you need to do a thorough assessment before completing this kind of work (don't forget to simply compare your project keys if you decide to migrate your projects to the "move to" site - to make sure there are no conflicts!)

The same way @Robert Wen_ReleaseTEAM_ disclosed, I also work for (another) Solution Partner, and we are actually currently in the process of combining two Orgs for one of our clients (who acquired another company).

Hope everything will go smoothly for your integration. 

[Betsy Edson]

This checklist is great.  I do believe that all users will be moved over to our domain, I just don't have the timeline for that yet.  My goal this month is to develop the plan.  This checklist should be a huge help with that task and identify what other information I need to gather.  I truly appreciate the insight.

[Umer Sohail _K15t_]

Hi @Betsy Edson 

This is Umer, PMM for Backbone Issue Sync for Jira. As mentioned by Robert and Elena, there are multiple factors to consider and ways to approach the integration of Jira instances.

One option could be keeping the two instances separate but keeping the relevant Jira issues and JSM tickets in sync using the marketplace app Backbone Issue Sync for Jira. This will buy you time to determine a way to integrate the two instances, or maybe you'd end up deciding to keep the instances separate and use Backbone to sync the tickets. 

Using Backbone, you can copy Jira tickets to the other project, along with comments, attachments, and custom fields, and automatically sync any updates and changes to the tickets. In addition, you get complete control over which tickets and Jira issues to sync with a particular project. 

If you decide to move your partner's instance into your own, you can use Backbone to migrate one Jira project's data to the other at your own pace and keep the two instances in sync as long as needed. 

If you want to discuss your particular use case, please schedule a demo or try Backbone for the first 30 days for free!