Failover/Redundancy Options

[Mont IT]

Hi!  We have two starter standalone licenses for Jira, one of which will expire in a few days.  We had originally purchased two licenses intending to use one at our failover site in the event our main site goes off-line.  Is this the proper way to handle a HA/DR scenario for Jira (we currently do the same for Confluence), or is it permitted to have Jira/Confluence installed at both sites using the same license as long as one installation remains shut down?

We just need to determine if we actually need both licenses,

Thanks!

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted solution]

Oh, there is a lot to this question, when I opened it up, part of me wanted to write a long essay on it.  I will try not to.

You have a Jira server licence. (Confluence is the same model, so I don't need to repeat for that)

Technically, the rule is 1 licence = 1 server.  If you are on 25+ you  have a "developer" licence that lets you create as many dev/test and failover systems as you want (plus some more obscure cases, I won't bore you)

You've got 2 servers, 2 licences for them, Atlassian don't care that one is failover for starter licences. 

If you went to 25+ users, you could get one production licence and that would give you a "developer" licence which is for dev, test, failover, DR, and and and, as well.

But, TLDR: you need to check the T&C to see if you can dump a licence.  I think you can, but my legal expertise is nil.

[Mont IT]

Thanks ... Atlassian support echoed a similar statement in regards of 1:1 server/license.  They did not elaborate on the developer license is available for 25+ users (maybe because our 10 user license did not qualify).  The did point to DR docs:

https://confluence.atlassian.com/enterprise/disaster-recovery-guide-for-jira-692782022.html

This is helpful, but there was not a description of the actual license needed for "cold standby".  Given self-hosted server will not longer be supported in the beginning of 2024, we will probably be converting over to that anyway - 10 users @ $20/year for Jira/Confluence moving to $1370/year is a big price jump, but they are good products and we are locked in at this point!

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Technically, you should use your developer licence for "cold standby", but the reality is that the best cold-standby setups are replicating the production database, so they contain the production licence. 

The developer licence is used to get the cold standby server set up and tested.  Depending on the exact nature of your failover, it may also need to be manually applied to the standby during a failover (specifically, when a production licence is locked to a server, the failover may not look the same, so the failover won't run - that's when to use the developer licence)

But although the lawyers could run us all around in rings, Atlassian work off intent, not legalese.  

The licence "needed" for a cold standby is simply your production licence.   You have one system you're using for production, and you have a licence to do so.