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_Cprime_ · 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_Cprime_  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_Cprime_ 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.

[OpsHub - Enterprise class Integration and Migration Solutions for Jira]

Hi @Betsy Edson

Keeping a separate or single instance depends on the organization's requirements. Based on the experience, here are the options with their pros and challenges which may help you in your decision:

Option 1: Manage two separate instances under a single organization/account.

Pros:

a) It allows you to keep data separately for each organization if the setup is complex and merging involves significant effort or risk.

b) No data loss or plugin requirement in the current org if the acquired org has any plugin being used.

c) It does not impact the current organization's performance if the data is huge in the acquired organization.

Challenges:

a) It requires more administration and maintenance as you have to monitor two instances.

b) Cross-team/project traceability and collaboration becomes difficult

c) Fields and workflow templates need to be managed separately.

Option 2: Import their projects into your instance.

Pros:

a) A unified view of all data for traceability and decision-making.

b) We need to maintain a single instance that makes it cost-effective.

Challenges:

a) More planning and coordination are required to ensure a smooth transition and avoid data loss or inconsistencies.

b) It makes the instance bulkier if there is more data.

c) Accurate planning to transform data if the templates are different in the other instance.

d) Need to take care of the project key (whether the same project key exists in the source system) when migrating the project.

OpsHub, an Atlassian Silver Solutions partner, has successfully consolidated and integrated many organizations' Atlassian ecosystems using OpsHub Migration Manager or OpsHub Integration Manager as needed.

Feel free to reach out to us for an initial free consultation on your use case with our solutions architects 

Thanks,

OpsHub Team

[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!