Confluence Migration/Upgrade from 3.5 to 5.5

[Pete]

I've inherited an old version of Confluence 3.5 running on SLES, about 11GB worth of data. I want to upgrade it to the latest version 5.5 and move it to a new CentOS server running MySQL 5.5

Ideally I would like to install a clean version of 5.5 on the CentOS server, export the data from the old server and import to the new - but I'm guessing this won't work due to database incompatibilities.

Would I need to update 3.5 to 5.5 on the existing server using the recommended path, then migrate to the clean install on the new server? The existing mySQL install uses myISAM to make things a little more complicated.

Can someone point in the right direction please?

Thanks

[Steve Thornhill · Accepted solution]

Take it slow and steady.

I'd be tempted to backup the old server and restore it to the same level on the new CentOS server, but using mySQL with the correct parameters. After the restore check the database is still using utf8, etc and correct if necessary.

Then you can perform the stepped migration on that server while still having the old one to fall back on if anything goes wrong and you have to wipe/restart.

Make sure you take a decent full backup between each step, saves a bit of time if you need to revert anything.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

I'd also add that I wouldn't recommend 3.5 to 5.5 - although it might work for you, I've done 3.5 to several versions of 5 and the only successful ones have been to 5.0.

The upgrade from 5.0 to 5.latest have been a doddle afterwards though.

[Pete]

Interesting.. thanks. Am I right in thinking I will run into problems with the tables being myISAM and 5.5 needing innodb?

[Steve Thornhill]

You may well end up running into issues with some of the migration steps.

I would migrate it as soon as possible as stated above - it helps in the long run and saves picking through problems when you run the upgrade steps. You will end up with language settings and data type problems as you go along.