Upcoming Enterprise releases targeting Q3 2019: Jira Software 8.5 & Jira Service Desk 4.5

[Jess Seitz]

Enterprise releases are now called Long Term Support releases

As of June 29th, 2020, Enterprise releases are now called Long Term Support releases. The security bug fix policy for these releases was also updated - we will continue to backport critical security bug fixes and now when architecturally possible, all other security bug fixes are backported to the release for 24 months. To learn more about this change, view our Community post.

Since launching the Jira Software 8.0 and Jira Service Desk 4.0 platform releases in February, many of you have been asking when the next Enterprise release will be so you can take advantage of the massive performance improvements, batched email notifications, the Jira Software mobile beta, and more.

We recognize that it is critical for our enterprise customers to have access to Enterprise releases on the new 8.0 & 4.0 platforms. That's why we’re giving you advance notice that our next Enterprise releases are targeting Q3 2019 (calendar year) and will be Jira Software Server & Data Center 8.5 and Jira Service Desk Server & Data Center 4.5.

Should you move to the latest Enterprise releases, or wait for the upcoming one?

If you are not on the latest Enterprise releases, we recommend upgrading to Jira Software 7.13 & Jira Service Desk 3.16. As a reminder, the two-year support window for Jira 7.6 will end on November 16, 2019. 

If you work with a Technical Account Manager or Premier Support, consult your contact for a recommendation based on your environment and upgrade cadence.

Two big changes to our Enterprise release process (based on your feedback):

1. We understand that advance notice helps you plan for upgrades, so we’re sharing the targeted 8.5 and 4.5 Enterprise releases now. 
2. The releases will be certified from the start, so you won’t need to wait for the certified bug fix versions to upgrade. In fact, because we focus on stability and performance for Enterprise releases, there won't be any features in 8.5/4.5, so you can start testing as early as 8.4/4.4.

When is the next Confluence Enterprise release? 

The Confluence team plans to follow the same ~12 month cadence between Enterprise releases (Confluence 6.13 was released in December 2018), so you can expect to see an update about the next Confluence Enterprise release in Q4 2019. 

What can you expect from Enterprise releases? 

Enterprise releases receive additional backported bug fixes and security updates from later feature releases throughout its two-year support window. If you manage a large, complex deployment of Jira and require significant effort to upgrade, an Enterprise release ensures you can remain on the release for longer if you prefer.

You can also expect to receive additional support and documentation from the Atlassian team, including a combined change log and performance benchmarks from the prior Enterprise release. 

Cheers,

Jessica

[Jeff Everett]

The forward looking roadmap is greatly appreciated.  The recent jira boards I saw with short term backlog for both server and datacenter is also nice-- might be a helpful reference to add here so we can see how you're tracking towards 8.5.

[Jess Seitz]

@Jeff Everett Glad to hear you're finding the new Jira boards useful, here's the link for others to reference: https://jira.atlassian.com/secure/Dashboard.jspa?selectPageId=85890 

[Joseph Pursel]

With the recently discovered CVE-2019-3396 security vulnerability for Confluence Server, an additional item for consideration for each software release process, would be to provide a statement that each products server releases be certified against all known security vulnerabilities by proactively performing a Security Vulnerability Assessment on each upcoming release. This is becoming an ever increasing area of interest as Enterprises are being increasingly attacked  and are becoming more vigilant regarding illegal software penetration into their servers and applications.

In addition, having to take measures to mitigate any security vulnerability impacts the planned upgrade cycle Enterprises use in planning their Atlassian Server products upgrades. As we are in the process of upgrading to Confluence Server version 6.13.4, extra effort to mitigate the above referenced CVE has delayed our ability to meet our originally planned upgrade to this Enterprise Release.

Knowing that all Atlassian product releases are tested for security vulnerabilities before they are made available will give all Atlassian customers greater confidence that the Atlassian products we deploy have been certified by approved Security Vulnerability Assessment methods.

[Ada Chen]

Hi @Joseph Pursel ,

Thanks for the feedback. While adding a security vulnerability assessment to our release process would address known vulnerabilities at the time of release, this information would be out of date as soon as a new security bug was discovered. Security vulnerabilities are a moving target and we believe its more valuable to put our effort into a robust detect, fix and prevent process.

Our teams run numerous proactive security activities, including our Bugcrowd program and automatic security scans. When a vulnerability is found, we assess its potential impact and respond according to our SLAs (see details here). For a critical vulnerability, we work on issuing a new bug fix release as soon as possible and we encourage all customers to stay on the latest bug fix release for the version of the product you are using.

It is unfortunate that the timing of CVE-2019-3396 interrupted your upgrade process and we are sorry about the impact on your team’s upgrade plans. We know that planning and executing an upgrade can be time-intensive, which is why we will continue to be proactive with our communications, like this Community post.

[ijaz ahmad]

Hi,

Can you please add support fot PostGres 10.xx

We have upgraded to PG10.x and don't want to rollback , waiting for PG10 to be supported. 

PG 9.xx is already very very old.

Thanks

[Gordon Andersen]

Hi,

We are planning to upgrade our Jira server installation from version 7.11 to 8.3. We only upgrade about once a year. 

Should one wait to Enterprise 8.5 has been released (is there a more precise release date?) or just upgrade to 8.3 and then upgrade again to 8.5 when released?

Any input appreciated. 

[Jess Seitz]

Hi @Gordon Andersen

We are targeting end of Q3 (annual year) 2019 to release the Jira 8.5 Enterprise release. 8.4 is right around the corner with new features and functionality, and then we will not be adding new features between 8.4 and 8.5, instead, taking the entire feature release cycle to focus on additional hardening and testing so that we can certify 8.5 as an Enterprise release from the start. If you choose to wait for 8.5, depending on your timeline, you can start testing on 8.4 once released. 

This community post also includes helpful resources for planning your upgrade and deciding which version to upgrade to: https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-articles/Jira-Software-7-6-and-Jira-Service-Desk-3-9-are-nearing-End-of/ba-p/1139935

Best,

Jessica

[Josh Costella]

@Jess Seitz 

We are in the process of migrating from Server to Cloud. Currently on 7.13.5.

Is 8.5 going to make us need to upgrade again prior to migrating?

[Jess Seitz]

@Josh Costella thanks for the question, no need to upgrade before migrating. Soon you won't need to manage upgrades anymore as we'll handle that on Cloud for you :) 

[Jess Seitz]

Hi all, quick update from the Jira team. On Monday (Sept 9th) we released 8.4, featuring expanded issue archiving capabilities, accessibility improvements, and 3 highly voted requests from jira.atlassian.com. For more details, take a look at the release notes. 

If you're planning to upgrade to the 8.5 enterprise release, now is a great time to start testing on 8.4. As I mentioned earlier, we are not adding any new features between 8.4 and 8.5, instead, taking the entire feature release cycle for robust performance and stability testing to ensure 8.5 is certified from the start. 

We're hyper-focused on delivering the best quality for this release, and you can expect to see it released in early Q4.  

[Sam Talkers]

Hi Jess. When will JIRA 8.5 for server be released? I know Q4, but do you have a more specific time frame? 

[Jess Seitz]

Hi @Sam Talkers thanks for asking, it's very soon! While I can't share our targeted release date, I can confirm that it's right around the corner and we're hard at work preparing for the release. Stay tuned - I'll update this thread with more details as soon as it's released. 

[Jason Unsworth]

Hi @Jess Seitz , 

My company runs several Jira Core Server deployments (alongside Confluence Server), and will be looking at setting up more soon, so we would be interested in switching to an Enterprise release of Jira Core Server in order to minimize our upgrade effort.

Are you able to comment on when Enterprise support will be added for Jira Core -- i.e., no longer only for Jira Software and Jira Service Desk?

Thanks!

[Jess Seitz]

Hi @Jason Unsworth great question. Like you mentioned, the Enterprise release is a dedicated version of Jira Software and Jira Service Desk.

Jira Software technically encompasses Jira Core, so we do release Jira Core as an Enterprise release as well. When prioritizing which fixes to backport over the 2-year support window, we do prioritize Jira Software use cases, though there is a significant overlap with Jira Core. 

[Jason Unsworth]

@Jess Seitz , that's great to hear.  Thanks very much for clarifying.

[Alex Lewis]

Hi all,

Just closing the loop here: we're very excited to share that the Jira Software 8.5 and Jira Service Desk 4.5 Enterprise releases are now available. You can read more about them in Our release blog.

If you have any questions or feedback for the releases, please post them either on this enterprise group post or on the main community post.

Cheers!

[Rafael Corredor]

Hi,

Congratulations for the new JIRA enterprise release! We will upgrade to this version very soon.

By the way, Is there any news about the next Confluence enterprise release?

Thank you in advance

[Alex Lewis]

Hi @Rafael Corredor 

Thanks for asking! Confluence 7.0 released on September 10, 2019. We are still determining which 7.x version to target for the next Confluence Enterprise release, but we hope to share more information by early 2020.

[Rafael Corredor]

Hi @Alex Lewis 

Thank you for the quick response!

Yes, I imagine it will be 7.1 or 7.2

Let's wait for it!

[Eddy Fras]

Hi @[deleted] 

Any news regarding the final 7.x version for next Confluence ER ?

Thanks

[Alex Lewis]

Hi @Eddy Fras and @Rafael Corredor

I'm so sorry for not getting back to this thready sooner. We announced that Confluence 7.4 will be the next Enterprise release, targeting March-April of 2020. More details on that in our announcement here.

[Eddy Fras]

Thanks Alex for your answer ! 

[Rafael Corredor]

Thank you very much!