Jira Server 7.3.2 upgrade to Server 8.19.1 or Data Center

[jamie.brown@ngc.com]

We are needing to upgrade from our current Jira Server 7.3.2 to a new Jira Server or Data Center. My question is, can we migrate to Data Center from server? Will Data Center be compatible with other Atlassian server apps (Crowd Server, Confluence Server and Bitbucket Server), which will be upgraded later?

[Craig Castle-Mead]

Hey jamie.brown@ngc.com 

Adding on to Nic's comment - while you can upgrade from Server to DC, and the other apps shouldn't care, the upgrade process on 7.3.2 does require some steps from memory eg: moving your attachments and some other core files to a "shared home" folder. This is in preparation for multiple nodes, shared home is usually some form of network shared storage (NFS) but even if you're only running a single node, you do need to specify a dedicated shared home folder which differs from your JIRA_HOME folder, even if shared home is a local/direct attached disc.

I believe in one of the 8.x Jira versions, you can simple add a DC license and get the DC features on a single node without needing to restructure the infrastructure

CCM

[Daniel Eads]

Yes that's right, it's Jira 8.8 where the Server to Data Center in-place conversion is heavily simplified. (see Jira versions cheatsheet )

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Data Center and Server are effectively the same software, and have the same range of compatibilities with external software.  Your Crowd, Confluence and Bitbucket don't care whether your Jira is Server or DC, they'll work fine with either.

The main place you will find they do differ is that some apps that work fine on Server, will fail on DC, as they don't work too well with the under-the-hood architecture.