need to know which version to upgrade

[ramani_chandran]

we have to upgrade Jira, bitbucket, crucible, crowd to the latest available version.But for Jira i can see that both enterprise version 7.13 and normal verion 8.1 is available.

we upgrade once in 2 years only. can anyone please help which version we can install for all the 4 applications.

Also will oracle 12c Release 1 be compatible for recent version where they have mentioned 12c release 2 for the latest version.

[Andy Heinzer · Accepted solution]

Hi

To paraphrase your question, "Which is better Jira version to upgrade to: 8.1 or the latest enterprise release 7.13.2?"

There are a few things to consider when answering this.  The answer might not be the same for all organizations.  Enterprise releases are designed for

larger, more complex instances – ones that require significant planning and effort to upgrade. We understand that upgrades for such instances can be few and far between, and so every upgrade needs to count.

https://confluence.atlassian.com/enterprise/atlassian-enterprise-releases-948227420.html

So it certainly would be a good version to go to.   However please be aware that the Atlassian Support End of Life policy states that the EOL for 7.13.x is going to be Nov 28, 2020, which as of today is about 20 months away or less than 2 years right now.

Conversely, 8.1 was released Apr 4, 2019, making it's EOL date Apr 4, 2021.   Plus 8.1 has a lot of performance improvements especially in regards to indexing.  For larger instances, I think many of them could see a noticeable performance improvement in this version.   Something to consider when upgrading Jira.

The bigger concern most admins have to face when upgrading Jira is "will my plugins be compatible?"  8.1 is rather new, so there are still a number of marketplace vendors that might not have updated their code to work with the newer Jira versions. 

To try to answer your question more succinctly: Both are great, but personally I would lean towards 8.1.  It does depend on the size of your environment, the plugins you have, etc.

As for using an Oracle database, at least the Jira 8.1 supported platforms show Oracle 12c R1 as supported.  Are you seeing a different document that indicates the R2 is supported?  Perhaps for a different product?

I hope this helps.

Andy

[Jimmy Seddon]

Hi @ramani_chandran

I agree with everything Andy has mentioned.  I can also say that while I work for a small company that only uses a small number of plugins, Performance was one of the biggest complaints I heard on a daily basis, and after upgrading to 8.1 Wednesday night everyone has been saying how much faster things are.

Just my two cents. 

-James 

[ramani_chandran]

thanks @Andy Heinzer for your reply. Yes i have seen Oracle 12c R2 for jira 8.1 version.But it seems R1 also supports.Thanks for that.

thanks @Jimmy Seddon for your comments too.