I have 56 projects on Jira 3.6.2. Can I upgrade only one of them to JIRA 5.1.7 ?

[Andrew Coburn]

1. I have cloned my production version JIRA 3.6.2 and made a development version at the same version
2. I upgraded the development verision to 4.4.4. I exported the data in XML format out of my production instance on verison 3.6.2 and imported it into my development instance on 4.4.4
3. I upgraded my 4.4.4 version to 5.1.7 and this upgraded the data in situ.
4. There are 56 projects in production and these are now copied into the development version

However I am only responsible for only one of the projects and I onlly want one of them to be upgraded. So I'm thinking I will create a second production instance and upgrade that to 5.1.7 following the 4 steps above and delete all the projects that I'm not responsible for.

That will give me 55 projects on prod1 JIRA on version 3.6.2 and 1 project on prod2 JIRA on version 5.1.7

This is good but what happens when a second project on prod1 wants to be move to prod2 and be on a later version of JIRA.

I can't see how I export just one project from prod1 on v3.6.2 and import it into prod2 on v5.1.7 for 2 reasons:

1. 3.6.2 can only export the whole database of 56 projects
2. 5.1.7. can only import a single project if has come from a version of the same instance

Please advise how I can import the second project ?

[Andrew Coburn · Accepted solution]

We are going to upgrade everyone in one go. As suggested it's the easiest solution to follow

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Export from 3.6.2 (everything), create a temporary 5.1.7 instance, import the data into that, export it, and then import into production 5.1.7

[Andrew Coburn]

The upgrade from 3.6.2 has to go through an interim stage of being upgraded to 4.X first. see this article: https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/JIRA051/Upgrading+JIRA+3.x+Data+to+JIRA+5.0

What you are proposing would probably work, but it would require a lot of work 3.6.2->4.4.4->5.1.7DEV->5.1.7PROD

Requires about 3 hops

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Argh, yes, I'm terribly sorry, you'll need a 4.x to go through.

[Norman Abramovitz]

This might be just as hard, but maybe you can manipulate the Jira 3.6.1 xml backup and only keep the project you want when you import into your temporary 4.4.4 instance.

I am not sure I would want to try to convert your 3.6.1 xml backup into a 5.1.7 xml file.

[Andrew Coburn]

I just wanted to give a bit more background info. The version of JIRA running currently has grown organically over the years since installation in 2006 and has pretty much looked after itself since then. We now have 56 projectd and over 300 people set up in it but more or less no one in charge of the whole installation. People are siloed and work on their own projects. I feel it would require a lot of work to get everyone to upgrade at the same time. All projects are at different stages and getting people to come in on a Monday and start working on 5.1.7 might be a big task to make happen. Hence I wanted just to upgrade one or two projects at a time.

However the current procedure requires a stepping stone of exporting out of 3.6.2 in XML and importing into 4.4.4 then upgrading in situ the 4.4.4 db to 5.1.7. At that point you've lost your 4.4.4 swing database. So migrating one or two projects at a time is not repeatable as you lose your 4.4.4 version everytime you do an upgrade.

Does anyone have any further suggestions ?

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

I'd bit the bullet and force the upgrade of the whole system. Anything else will be making vast amounts of work for you.

[Norman Abramovitz]

I agree with Nic. Spreading out the migration, training and complaining for a long period of time is counterproductive.

Your version is already beyond Atlassian's end of life policy and it probably not wise to continue this way.

https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/Support/Atlassian+Support+End+of+Life+Policy

Even if you just upgrade to 4.4.X (end of life in early 2014) it will hopefully make the next upgrade alittle easier.