Long Term Support vs End of Life

[Antonio Bosio]

Hi all,

someone can explain the real difference between Long Term Support and End of Life ?

According to what is written in the Atlassian documentation, all versions of JIRA Server go to End of Life 2 years after the first major iteration of that version was released. Ok clear.

The Long Term Support releases (for example 8.13) it should be supported for 2 years.  Ok, so..the same of EOL ?

If I understood right, the difference is very few months... With LTS version you always have 2 years of support and with the non-LTS version you lose maybe 1 or 2 months. 

Also I was thinking about this case ... Today I just upgraded JIRA to 8.13 version (LTS) and the license expires on December 31th, 2020. If I decide to not renew the license for 2 years, I still have the support (LTS) for 2 years ?

If then after two years I want to upgrade to the next LTS version what I have to pay? I have to pay 50% for the previous two years or I have to pay a simple classic renewal at 50%?

If anyone can help me understand this I would be grateful.

Best Regards,
Antonio

[Fleming Sena]

Hi,

Question guys, End of life means just end of support? but if my license is due on 2024 and end of life is on 2022, Can I still get fully functionality of my Jira?

[Andy Heinzer]

Long term support versions are entitled to get more kinds of bug fixes than other non-LTS versions are.  For example, we intend to port critical security bug fixes, critical bug fixes, and all other security bug fixes when possible to LTS version. 

When we release a LTS version, we expect to continue to support those versions for 2 years from the initial release.

Should your license expire, you technically are not entitled to support from Atlassian.  Instead you can only be supported through Community.  And furthermore, when a license expires, you are not able to perform any upgrades that are released after your expiration date.  For example, say you install Jira 8.13.0 today, and let's hypothetically say that Atlassian releases an 8.13.3 On January 1, 2021.  You would not be able to install that version because your license is expired before that release date.

I hope that helps to answer your concerns.

Andy

[Nirmala]

Hi, 

We are planning to migrate our current jira version 7.11.2 to 8.12.3. but we can see that that version's EOL is till 2022 also this is not mentioned as Long term Support. This is confusing us.. if one version is having EOL on 2022 that is 2 years from now means that should be an Long term support right? But why this is not mentioned as Long term support? Can you please explain this?  If this version 8.12.3 is not a long term support then do we need to upgrade our version again in the next year? Or it is based on the EOL date? 

 While planning for an upgrade do we need to consider the Long term support or EOL date?

Thanks,

Nirmala

[Andy Heinzer]

@Nirmala I will try to explain further.  All versions of Server and Data center products have an EOL (End of Life) for support of 2 years since the initial minor version was released.  The same is true for both Enterprise releases (which have long term support) and standard releases (which do not).

I would recommend upgrading to 8.13.x line instead.  That is the latest enterprise release version as noted on https://confluence.atlassian.com/enterprise/long-term-support-releases-948227420.html

Those enterprise releases will tend to get all the critical bug fixes and other bug fixes when possible throughout their 2 year life span.  The same is not always true for all versions, such as 8.12.x.  That particular version can still get critical bug fixes in that 2 year windows, but it's much less likely to do so.  The long term support here is intended to be more an indication that Atlassian is prepared for and willing to port more bug fixes back to these specific versions.

From that page I linked above:

Long Term Support releases are designed specifically 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.  So if you can manage only one feature release upgrade every year, make sure you upgrade to the latest Long Term Support release.

You can also see by looking at the Jira 7.13 release notes and the 8.5 release notes that these enterprise releases tend to get more individual update releases (7.13.18 and 8.5.9 as examples of 18 and 9 respective updates of each LTS version).   If you look at other non-LTS versions, they tend to only get 2-3 point releases each on average.

I hope this helps to clarify the confusion here.

Andy

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Please see your original question at https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-Software-questions/Test/qaq-p/1505951