Upgrading/migrating from 4.4.3 to 5.2 Jira on a new server

[Brent Webster]

I'm about to upgrade from 4.4.3 to 5.2 Jira and migrate it to a new server. In short, our company was bought and we need to move Jira to their corporate infrastructure which I have little control over. Therefore I need to put together a fairly detailed plan to upgrade and migrate our server. I have several projects, each with its own custom workflow using groovy runner scripts for validators, etc. I have edited velocity email templates and have numerous custom fields. If I have read the Jira upgrade documentation correctly, before I import the data from my 4.4.3 server, I need to ensure the new 5.2 server has the

- same workflow and workflow schemes
(Action: export 4.4.3 workflow and import it into 5.2 hopefully?)

- velocity email templates
(Action: hopefully just copy the appropriates 4.4.3 files into 5.2?)

- as for the rest of the customizations (priorities, statuses custom fields, etc)
(Actions: these must be manually recreated -- this sucks big time!!!!)

The big question: Am I correct in my above assumptions, or is there a simplier way?

BTW, you can have all my karma points if you make my life much easier.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted solution]

Could you explain something here - it sounds like you are trying to merge two Jira installations here (in which case your email velocity changes will break the target Jira install, so you'll need to put more thought into that). Is that correct?

If it's not, and you're simply picking up your data and putting it into a new, empty Jira, then the process is a lot more simple - Jira can upgrade it automatically, and you will only need to merge in your velocity changes.

[Brent Webster]

Sorry for taking so long but simply importing the XML did bring along the workflows, custom fields, etc. Still need to copy over my velocity changes and change most of the userids to conform with the new company's LDAP but that's another 10 year old Jira issue.

Thanks Nic.

[Sameera Shaakunthala [inactive]]

I need to ensure the new 5.2 server has the...

Looks like a 5.2 installation is already there and you need to merge your existing 4.4.3 data into that. Since you seem to have little control over the new 5.2 installation, let me tell you what are the possibilities of customization.

• Workflows/ Workflow schemes - this won't be a big thing. Most probably the target JIRA (5.2) installation may have different workflows. In that case, you can download your existing workflows into XML and create them in the target JIRA. This has no impact on the target JIRA installation.
• Velocity e-mail templates - this does not affect much of JIRA's functionality. However, it is a instance-wide change (can't be applied per project). Most probably your parent company will not be in a position to change the e-mail template. So you'll have to live with the existing e-mail templates in the target JIRA.
• Priorities/Statuses/Custom Fields - not a big deal, they can be created. Since they do not affect the existing functionalities in your 5.2 installation you can create them in target JIRA. You can define custom fields only for your set of projects. In JIRA 4.x there is an impact on system's performance when having more custom fields, but I'm not sure if it is valid for 5.2 . However 5.2 is performing well than 4.x so I think you don't have much to worry about performance.

One final word on all the aspects: Deciding of these changes in the target JIRA is a management thing. You need to convince your management with the exact requirement and plan the migration first. Some of the functionalities of your current installation may not be available after the migraton to the new instance, and also in the target JIRA there will be changes that its systems administrators have to live with.

Request for a test replica instance of thetarget 5.2 install and study it. It will make it easier for you to identify what is possible and what is not.

After you finalize all the aspects, here's my suggested plan for upgrade/ moving:

1. In a separate test environment, upgrade your current JIRA to 5.2
2. Make required changes in the 5.2 instance. These should be compatible with the set of changes finalized and the target JIRA.
3. Take an XML backup of your upgraded JIRA.
4. Use this XML backup and perform a Project Import in the target JIRA instance, for each of your current project.

Cheers!

[Jobin Kuruvilla [Adaptavist]]

None of the customizations needs to be manually imported. They will be ported along with the data. But you will have to merge in the changes like changes to velocity templates, jsp files etc.

Follow this process in a test server - use the upgrade your existing JIRA option.

https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/JIRA/Upgrading+JIRA

After upgrade, merge in the changes to velocity templates, modify the grrovy scripts to accomodate API changes and do some testing.