Announcing Jira’s next long-term support releases- Jira Software 9.12 & Jira Service Management 5.12

[#1]

^{Streamline your workflow, scale your software, and strengthen your security}

The Jira Data Center team is excited to announce the next upcoming long-term support releases, Jira Software Server and Data Center 9.12 and Jira Service Management Server and Data Center 5.12!

As these will be the final long-term support releases for Jira Software Server and Jira Service Management Server, we recommend upgrading to Data Center. Please note that you can upgrade to Data Center from any version of Server.

If you’re already on Data Center, we recommend upgrading to this LTS.

Jira Software 9.12 and Jira Service Management 5.12 will release in the final quarter of calendar year 2023, featuring many new advantages for admins and end users alike.

What you can expect

Jira Software 9.12 and Jira Service Management 5.12 include the security and performance benefits you’ve come to expect with LTS releases. They also include powerful features that will increase the efficiency and productivity of admins and end-users alike. Discover the array of new features available to you with your LTS upgrade. The below is not a comprehensive list of all features included in the upcoming LTS but a sneak peek of some exciting admin and user productivity gains.

Streamlined workflows and automation for end users

These LTS releases include several new benefits to empower end-users to work faster and more efficiently. With features designed to reduce repetitive tasks, self-service more quickly, and reduce the clutter that can slow end-users down, Jira Software 9.12 and Jira Service Management 5.12 help teams complete more work, faster.

Jira Software 

• Auto-managed sprints empower you to start and complete project sprints automatically on set dates and at a set time.
• Pinned comments help you to always have the essential information from issue comments on hand.
• Sticky comment footer enables you to add a comment from any place in an issue, without scrolling down the page.

Learn more about these and the other features designed to help improve your work day in the Jira Software release notes.

Jira Service Management 

• Comments and attachments for approvals enhances communication between requestors and approvers by enabling comments and attachments on approval requests.
• Share requests with Jira groups enables admins to include Jira groups as customers with whom they wish to allow agents to share requests, without needing to manually add members as request participants.
• Login-free customer portal opens your Help Center experience to all users without login or account creation to explore portals, read articles, and submit requests.
• Improved email filtering enables Jira admins to control how email requests that your customers send are filtered by Jira Service Management by allowing or blocking domains.

Learn more about these and the other features designed to provide the best service desk experience in the Jira Service Management release notes.

---

Improved performance and stability for admins

These LTS releases will also enhance the work experience for admins.  With simplified workflows and better visibility, administrators' productivity will improve, enabling them to focus on other activities and give back precious time in their day.

Jira Software

Learn more about these and the other features designed to help improve your workday in the Jira Software release notes.

• Health check for email performance catches issues in mail queues so that they can be resolved timely with no delays.
• Manual index snapshots on demand allow admins to trigger index snapshots with one click at any time, without a cumbersome workaround with a scheduled service.
• Custom field configuration rework improves the admin’s experience with setting up contexts for custom fields, as well as provides the ability to control the visibility of system and custom fields that have no value.
• New mail queue metrics provide more details of mail queue contents for better performance checks.

Jira Service Management 

Learn more about these and the other features designed to provide the best service desk experience in the Jira Service Management release notes.

• Email notification performance improvements reduce email delay on your instance from hours to minutes or even to zero, depending on how large an instance is.
• Assets imports improve import reliability and are more performant at scale.
• Dedicated Assets import node allows admins to control the overall performance of a pool without scaling up every single node.
• New mail queue metrics provide more details of mail queue contents for better performance checks.

---

Security and platform improvements for all 

We know long-term support releases are relied on for improvements to the security and performance of your software. These releases include technical updates to boost Jira performance, strengthen instance stability, and protect your data.

• Support for Java 17 added (JSW & JSM)
• The Backbone library upgraded to the recent versions
• Log4j upgraded to version 2.17.2 to ensure continued compliance.
• An embedded H2 database upgrade from 1.4.200 to 2.1.x, helping to prevent vulnerability issues and boost data security.
• JMX blocklist deserialization filter implemented to block fabricated data from getting into your instance through malicious requests.

Thanks for checking out our Jira LTS announcement. Make sure to follow along with the Data Center roadmap, as well as the Jira Software and Jira Service Management release notes to see all the features that will be included in the LTS. Bug fixes and security improvements coming with this LTS release can also be found in the release notes.

As a reminder for those of you who are currently on Jira Software 8.20 or Jira Service Management 4.20: the end of life (EOL) for these versions is January 31, 2024.

Best,

The Jira Data Center and Server team

[Andrew Laden]

If 9.12 isn't coming out till Q4 of 2023, can you extend the support date of 8.20 till Q1 2024, so that people on 8.20 will have time to upgrade to the latest LTS without having to go through a needless upgrade to 9.4 for a few months? 

[Matt Doar]

I think we would want to use something after 9.12.0, which means early 2024 at the latest. I'm ok with upgrading to a well-tested 9.4.x since it will be more than a few months for us

[Richard Duffy]

Is JSM Forms (cloud) on the roadmap for Data Center? 

[Gonchik Tsymzhitov]

Hi @Anna Scisłowska , 

Thanks for that announce! 

I can't wait to adjust our ecosystem ;)

[Bryan Guffey]

Hi @Anna Scisłowska - do you have any update about extending Jira 8.20 LTS  EOL? 

[Raja]

The EOL for 8.20 has been extended till December 31 to help the customers plan for the upgrade.

Here are the official EOL dates 

https://confluence.atlassian.com/support/atlassian-support-end-of-life-policy-201851003.html

[Qualcomm Support]

When is the 9.12 release planned? Any plans to release 9.12 beta release in coming days/week? We don’t see the 9.12 version listed yet on the Atlassian page https://confluence.atlassian.com/support/atlassian-support-end-of-life-policy-201851003.html

[Vickey Palzor Lepcha]

@Qualcomm Support  Q4 2023

[Qualcomm Support]

Thanks @Vickey Palzor Lepcha. Any specific date/month for 9.12 release?

[Gonchik Tsymzhitov]

Hello, when we can upgrade ? 

[Jonathan Wilson]

Has an actual release date been determined?

[Frank Hess]

@Anna Scisłowska : Any news concerning the release date? For our upgrade plannings it's essential to have some kind of timeline as EOL for 8.20 is coming nearer and most of our customers have a frozen zone where we aren't allowed to change systems.

[Joseph Chung Yin]

@Anna Scisłowska -

As of right now (Oct 2023), we still don't see Jira Software/JSM Data Center 9.12.x/5.12.x are available and released for customers to upgrade to.

We are currently on 9.4.5/5.4.5 and are going to upgrade to new version.  As always, we are required to upgrade to next LTS version for our envs.

Please advise the when the latest LTS versions will be available.  Are we missing something?

Here is the latest release notes reference page for JSW and JSM -

https://confluence.atlassian.com/jirasoftware/jira-software-release-notes-776821069.html

https://confluence.atlassian.com/servicemanagement/jira-service-management-release-notes-780083086.html

Only 9.11.x and 5.11.x are listed...

Need your assistance ASAP.

Best, Joseph Chung Yin  

[Chander Korshika]

Hello @Anna Scisłowska is there any specific date or approx. date when 9.12 LTS is going to be released ?

[Anna Scisłowska]

Dear All, thank you for your interest in 9.12!
Unfortunately, I can’t share a more specific timeline, but I can say that we are still on track to release the LTS in Q4 2023.

[Bob Clingan]

last year the new LTS version dropped in the first week of November, I wonder if we can expect the same this year?

[Joey Officer]

The most recent update from 10/30/23 says that you're still on track for a 2023Q4 release.  As another commenter pointed out, we're pushing up against calendars that restrict upgrades during peak vacation/holiday seasons (end of November through December).

Does Atlassian have an update on a date for the new 9.12 LTS release or are you still keeping it vague as Q4?

[Edgar Koenig - SVA]

Hi,

in view of the recently published secrutiy bulletin we need an exact release date for 9.12. So when do you plan to give us this information?

Regards

Edgar König

[DavidGrubeschitsch]

Hello!

Is there any update on a date for the new Jira 9.12/ JSM 5.12 LTS release?

Best regards,

David

[seb tastic]

When will the 9.12 LTS finally be released???

[Anna Scisłowska]

Exciting news!
Our much-anticipated Jira 9.12 LTS is now live. We appreciate your patience throughout this process and are thrilled to bring you this latest update.
For a smooth upgrade, check our guide, and to know what’s new, see our release notes.
Thank you for your ongoing commitment and support.

[Ian Benson]

Thank you.