Is federating Jira servers the right option?

[Rob Horan]

Due to a merger/acquisition my organization has two Jira instances.  There is an organization wide instance and a smaller instance.  We all want to move towards using the org wide instance but still need to access the project data.

Problem: these two instances of Jira are at different versions and both have their own set of custom objects.  (fields, workflows, screens, etc)

Migrating projects from one server to the other seems like it will be a serious bit of work.  Federating the servers seems like a good way to keep the info from the old server available (for searches, dashboards, etc) without risk.  

Am I looking at this the wrong way?  What are the downsides to federating?

[Matt Doar]

Well, there's no easy federated searching.

You're right about merging, it's a lot of work.

The simplest approach is to offer to configure the main Jira as needed for the users who currently work in the smaller Jira. Get them to start using the main Jira. Make the small Jira's issues, comments etc read-only. Leave the small Jira alone and work should naturally move to the main Jira. Your reports will be messed up for a few months but things settle down in time.

[Matt Doar]

And if you really have to merge, look at Botron software tools for Jira

[Rob Horan]

Thanks Matt but throwing away our history is not what we want to do.  

What's the point of federating servers if search won't work?