How to migrate from Server 6.4. (100 users) to latest Cloud (50 users)

[IBX User]

Hello,

I can not find the migration path with enough information for our case anywhere in the documentation.

We have an old version of JIRA 6.3.14 and JIRA Agile with expired maintenance. Both for 100 users. Now that our company reorganised (we are a legal successor) we want to start using the latest Cloud version for JIRA with some of the projects migrated from the older JIRA server version.

I read this at Importing Issues:

If you're migrating from JIRA Server 6.4 (and earlier) and JIRA Agile 6.7 (and earlier) to JIRA Software Cloud, you must first upgrade to JIRA Software Server 7.0 or above.

So, we should

• renew the 100 users server license (to 20 Jan 2017, which is just around the corner) for $3660
• download and install the latest 7.x JIRA Software for Server
• migrate selected projects from the old 6.3 instance
• migrate selected users (how?)
• buy JIRA cloud for 50 users ($300/month)
• migrate projects from server to cloud
• (and kiss $3660 goodbye)

Or do we have other options?

Best regards!

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Your Server licence entitles you to use any version released before 20 Jan 2017, and will not stop things working if it expires anyway.  So you can upgrade to 7.2 any time.

Migration from Server to Cloud is covered by https://confluence.atlassian.com/jirakb/migrating-from-jira-server-to-jira-cloud-779160826.html including the user stuff.

Your "selected projects" is a separate step though - I'd clone production, upgrade it (if you stick with 6.3 for now), then delete any projects you don't want to transfer, and then migrate that over to Cloud.

[IBX User]

Hello Nic, fast answer, thanks.

Our server license support expired on January 20th 2016. Which version does that cover? I tried to click the "Download JIRA (Server)" link under our server license section at my.atlassian.com but it seems to downlod the latest version (7.2.4) which I guess was not release before January 20th 2016. I thought the link would offer me the correct latest version for our license.

Looking at release dates I see we are entitled to 7.0.9 version. 

What will happen when importing from 100 users server instance to 50 users cloud instance?

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Oh, um, you said 2017 in your question.

You could use an evaluation licence to work through the upgrade and export process.

[IBX User]

Yeah, maybe it was not explicit enough - "renew the 100 users server license (to 20 Jan 2017..." which implies that we have a mainenance period to 2016 and after renewal (for one year) to 2017.

If we use the 7-day evaluation license of JIRA Software 7.2.x, is the format of the export file different then 7.0.x? If not, then we are better off with an unlimited (timewise) 7.0.9 version, if something complicates during transition.

I am still in the dark about the user tier downgrade procedure.

Thanks for all your comments!

[IBX User]

Oh, after a cup of coffee...

You suggested to clone the production, clean the projects, reduce the users, etc and then create a backup to import into cloud instance.

Just the cleaning will take a while....dooh.

Thanks.