Copy multiple projects from data centre to cloud for archive purposes

[Sarah Mathews]

The company I work for (company A) has acquired another company (company B). Company B uses Data Centre JIRA and has approx 70 projects. Company A uses JIRA in the cloud.

Company A wishes to take a copy of all of Company B's projects for archive purposes. All the projects must be read only on Company A's side (they will never be in production). Some of the projects may need to be accessed from time to time to view historical data, but most will never be touched (but we need to know we can access them if ever required).

Given we will never need to add data to these projects once they have been copied, what is the best method to do this? Should we use the Jira Cloud Migration assistant to copy everything from Company B to Company A's cloud site and then either hide the projects or make them read only? Or should we use Project Congfigurator? Or should we use offline archiving and only restore the projects when we need to access them? Or set up a separate site just for these archived projects? Or is there a better method in this scenario?

Any advice appreciated!

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello @Sarah Mathews 

Welcome to the Atlassian community.

If you leave the projects on the existing Data Center instance, when that license expires the data will become read-only automatically. That is the nature of a DC license. Is there a particular reason you can't or don't want to just leave the data where it is?

How frequently do you expect to need to view the issue data?

Do you want the issue data included in search results normally? Archiving projects means that their issues will not be included in filter results. If the projects are archived, then the issues will not be included in filter results. The projects will also not be visible in the View All Projects list. End user could access individual issues through the UI as read-only with a direct link to the issue. Note, though, that they would have all the permissions allocated through the Permission Scheme if accessing the issue through the REST API. So, if you wanted the issues to be truly read-only, you would have to change their permission scheme.

Do you care about the agile board and dashboard associated with these projects, or any Advanced Roadmap plans?

What about third party app functionality that they may have in Data Center?

You could migrate the projects to a new site. If very few people will ever need access to the data, you could set that up as a Free subscription to avoid incurring costs and you could manage who has access to the site/product using local groups. However, you would lose access to DC specific functionality like Advanced Roadmaps. And if they have third party apps that provided additional functionality, like new types of custom fields, you could lose access to that data also.

The third party app consideration would affect you even if you move the projects to your existing Premium subscription, if you don't add their third party apps to your subscription.

How are the users set up in the DC product? Do the emails they have there match emails used for their corresponding Atlassian accounts? As part of the acquisition are they getting new email addresses in the domain of Company A?

Have you been through a DC to Cloud migration before? There are a lot of details and considerations in that process. You have to decide how you want to migrate users. You have to evaluate the third party app used in DC to see if they have a Cloud compatible version and what functionality differences may exist. You also have to consider what data in Jira itself as well as data related to the third party apps can and cannot be migrated.

You may want to consider engaging an Atlassian Solution Partner to help you assess your situation and needs, and help you plan for (and potentially execute) the change.

(Disclosure: I work for Praecipio, an Atlassian Platinum Solution Partner.)

[Sarah Mathews]

Hi Trudy

Thank you for your detailed reposnse. It sounds like there is a lot to consider!

In answer to your first question, Company B is owned by Company C. I believe Company C has other JIRA projects in the data centre so it is not possible to just take over the licence.

As mentioned, we do not plan to use any of these projects in the future, however we will need to be able to access them to view history, if ever required.  The users who would have acesss once the projects are migrated would be different to the current users (if business users need to access the historical projects they will request this via the IT support desk who will retrieve the information they require)

Thinking about this in a different way, as we won't need the functionality of the projects at all, is there a way to just get the raw data from each project and store that in a DB that we can query if ever needed?

Thank you in advance for your advice and expertise!

[Sarah Mathews]

Hi again @Trudy Claspill 

Further to my response above, I'm hoping you might be able to help with this questions too.  I was wondering, if we were to take an XML back up of the projects from the data center, can this be restored to the cloud?

Thank you

Sarah

[Trudy Claspill]

Information on the methods that can be used to migrate from Jira DC to Jira Cloud can be found starting here:

https://support.atlassian.com/migration/docs/cloud-migration-methods-for-jira/

XML backup and restore is not a method listed there.

Regarding your question about getting the raw data, exactly what data would you want to try to get? And how would you expect to store that in a database to make it searchable?

You can use the export options available from the Search Issues screen to get most, but not all, issue related data. That will not give you information about the configuration of the project, screens, workflow, etc.

Another option would be to ask Company C to create another Data Center instance and migrate the Company B data to it, and include that instance in the turnover of assets. Company A may need to purchase their own Jira DC license for that instance.

Or ask Company C to give you a copy of the Jira Database that contains only the Company B data. Searching that database would be painful though without using the Jira application itself.