Difference between EOL date and the Long term support

Question

Hi team,

We are planning to migrate our current jira version 7.11.2 to 8.12.3. but we can see that that version's EOL is till 2022 also this is not mentioned as Long term Support. This is confusing us.. if one version is having EOL on 2022 that is 2 years from now means that should be an Long term support right? But why this is not mentioned as Long term support? Can you please explain this?  If this version 8.12.3 is not a long term support then do we need to upgrade our version again in the next year? Or it is based on the EOL date?

While planning for an upgrade do we need to consider the Long term support or EOL date? Can you please clarify this also ASAP?

Thanks,

Nirmala

Kat Warner · Answer

Your best option right now is Jira Software 8.13.x as this is both the latest release and a long term support release.

Nirmala_976b9p · Answer

If we go for 8.12.3 version that will be support us for 2 years?

Also version 8.5.9 mentioned as a long term support but it's EOl is next year .should we upgrade next year also?

Kat Warner · Answer

Your question is answered by Atlassian here.

Atlassian supports feature versions for two years after the first major iteration of that version was released.

Generally one version a year per product is designated a Long Term Support release. In addition to the 2-year support window, LTS releases will benefit from patch releases where possible for:

* Critical security bug fixes
* Critical bug fixes
* All other security bug fixes, whenever possible

The general rule is if upgrades happen once. year (or less) and are a complex process for your organisation then choose the latest LTS. If you could upgrade to a new version if there was a critical bug fix then choose the latest version release at the time of your upgrade planning.