Moving onsite to cloud as an archive

[Jared Kupidura]

We are moving from the onsite version of Jira and Confluence to the Cloud hosted ones. Taking it as an opportunity to start fresh and clean it up, we would like to import our onsite Jira as just an archive and just manually create our new projects in Jira. Is there a way to do this besides importing the entire onsite Jira backup into the cloud and then archiving them?

[Angélica Luz]

Hi Jared,

Welcome to Atlassian Community!
Currently, on Jira Cloud, there is no option to archive projects. When you import a backup from Server or Cloud to a Cloud instance, the instance will be wiped and all projects, workflows, custom fields, users will be imported and then it's possible to delete this information but not to archive.
There is a feature request suggesting this ability:
- https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRACLOUD-1450

Regards,
Angélica

[Jared Kupidura]

Hi Angélica,

Thank you so much for the info. If we were to go to Jira Cloud without restoring from backup and let our on site license expire will we still be able to access the on site Jira as an archive or read only? 

[Angélica Luz]

If you let the license expire, the instance will be deactivated and then destroyed to make sure that all data was deleted.
You can find more details here.

[Jared Kupidura]

This does not make any sense, we host and store all of the on premise Jira server data so how would you wipe it all? It looks like the link provided is for a cloud instance and not for an on premise one. Can you clarify if this for an ON PREMISE instance of Jira? If not, then what happens to the on premise instance once the license expires.

[Angélica Luz]

Hi Jared, sorry for the misunderstanding, the documentation is indeed for Cloud.
For Jira Server, you can keep your data and use it, but once the license expires you won't be able to raise requests with our support and won't be able to upgrade to new versions after the end of the license.
Note that if you have an evaluation, users won't be able to access Jira.
You can find more details on the documentation below:
- What happens when the included maintenance ends?