On-Prem to Cloud Considerations (custom JQL workflow)

[Jennifer Pole]

Hi all,

Very high-level question. I am the customer where we are having a green-fields implementation of a Jira platform custom coded for a bespoke workflow process (including custom PDF doc creation using fields from the workflow).

We have currently tested the solution and agreed to security based on the on-prem solution, however our vendor has suggested we change to the Cloud based platform and the suggestion is that there will be no difference, and re-testing is not needed.

1. Can someone please comment with any gotcha's or considerations and possible impacts that we as the customer should consider in agreeing to this please?

2. How often are the cloud updates pushed out and do you consider that all custom code should be tested before each update?

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello @Jennifer Pole 

Welcome to the Atlassian community.

In my opinion in general one should not plan to change from using the Jira Data Center (on-premise) product to using the Jira Cloud product without performing testing of customizations that you have put in place with the on-premise instance. There are many differences in the two products. Some things that can be done with native Jira DC environments cannot be recreated or replicated in the Jira Cloud environment.

If you have added third party plugins to your Jira DC environment that is another area of risk.

Without analyzing your environment and customizations I can't speak to the specific areas of risk. 

Is your vendor suggesting migrating existing data and configurations from Jira DC to Jira Cloud or starting from nothing and rebuilding everything in Jira Cloud?

Who would be responsible for the migration (or rebuild)? Who would be responsible for the testing?

Is there an impact to the contract that you have with the vendor based on your decision?

Atlassian pushes out updates to their Cloud products on a weekly cadence and publishes a weekly blog  about changes. Depending on your subscription level in Cloud you may be able to implement Release Tracks to have the updates bundled for delivery less frequently. Even with the weekly cadence the changes may not be delivered to all cloud environments on the same day. If you are not implementing Release Tracks then you will not necessarily have an opportunity to test your customizations in an updated environment before those updates are pushed to your instance.