Hi Nancy,
First, yes, Jira Align is a separate product from Jira.
As to your question regarding needing it for managing PIs in Jira? Depends on the scale of coordinated planning across how many teams of teams that dictates when you may have outgrown what Jira and it's add-ons can do for you.
If you are looking to plan PIs across the Trains/Teams of Teams/Agile Delivery Groups within a given value stream/portfolio, then you may want to consider using Advanced Roadmaps and other add-on/integrations to manage it. Can Jira Align with Jira manage it also, yes, but it may not be the right fit based on where your organization is in it's agile journey.
However, once you need coordinated planning across value-streams/portfolio/products then you will most certainly need Jira Align to harness the data of Jira and deliver that larger strategic data view for enterprise planning purposes.
I hope this helped set some of the context of how Jira and Jira Aling can be used?
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