Upgrade Jira from 2.1 to 4.x

Joy Debnath November 22, 2011

Hi Team,

We are currently running Jira on 2.1, we are planning to migrate to 4.x. Could you please provide us the perquisites and steps to perform the upgrade.

Regards,

Joy

4 answers

1 vote
GilesG November 22, 2011

Hi Joy,

Which 4.x version are you planning to upgrade to? JIRA's upgrade prerequisites are different depending on the 4.x version of JIRA you plan to upgrade to, but in general, specific prerequisites (or points to be aware of) are mentioned in the Upgrade Notes (formerly called Upgrade Guides) for each version of JIRA released.

If I assume you're planning to upgrade to the latest 4.x release, which is 4.4.3, a good place to start is the JIRA 4.4.3 Upgrade Notes, which also mentions the important need to read the JIRA 4.4 Upgrade Notes (i.e. for JIRA 4.4.0).

JIRA handles most upgrade tasks for you, but you should also read the Upgrade Notes/Guides for the versions of JIRA you are skipping (mentioned on this page which is probably all of them mentioned on that page), particularly if you have customised your JIRA 2.1 installation. I'm aware that that's a lot of reading, but there have also been a lot of changes in JIRA since version 2.1 and many of the points may not be applicable to you.

Please also be aware of the Supported Platforms for JIRA 4.4.x, since several platforms that were supported in JIRA 2.1 no longer are in JIRA 4.4.x.

Also, I'd recommend upgrading to at least JIRA 4.4.0 as subsequent upgrades will be much easier to perform from that version of JIRA. If you do plan to upgrade to a JIRA 4.4.x version, please follow the Migrating JIRA to Another Server guide to do so.

Cheers,

Giles.

0 votes
Joy Debnath December 8, 2011

Thanks a lot Giles

Joy Debnath December 8, 2011

Thanks a lot Mark

0 votes
mlassau_atlassian
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November 23, 2011

Wow - v2.1 - thats pretty old, but its great that you are looking at upgrading.

Realise that you will not be able to upgrade in one single hit.
You will need to first upgrade from 2.1 to 3.x then from 3.x to 4.x.

Like Giles says, read ALL the upgrade guides for each version you are going through, and run test upgrades on a Test Server first to make sure it works. Actually I can only find guides back to v2.6, but read 2.6, 3.0, 3.1, 3.2, ...
Each version has both "Release Notes" and an "Upgrade Guide". The "Upgrade Guide" is the one you are more interested in.

How big is the data you will be upgrading?
The recommended approach for customers on 3.x and early 4.x systems was to do an XML export from the old version and then import into a pristine installation of the new version.
The downside here is that can be very slow (and even sometimes fail) if your data is massive.
The alternative is to shut down the old version, and point the new version at the existing DB.
Please note that if you take this alternative route, then you will need to run manual DB updates at certain stages along the way - documented in those individual upgrade guides. eg see http://confluence.atlassian.com/display/JIRA/JIRA+3.7+Upgrade+Guide

0 votes
GilesG November 23, 2011

Hi Joy,

Just another point to emphasise, as mentioned in the Migrating JIRA to Another Server guide, we'd strongly recommend that you perform your upgrade in a test environment first, particularly if your JIRA 2.1 server contains 'mission critical' data.

Cheers,

Giles.

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