What is the best way to determine if Jira servers should be merged or federated?

[Rob Horan]

I administer a Jira server for my team and a few others.  Due to an acquisition we now have a larger, organization-wide instance of Jira as well.  We need information from my smaller instance available to the larger.  (Searches, dashboards, links, etc) I am not sure of how best to go about this, or what the potential dangers there are.  Any help would be very much appreciated. One server uses crowd for user accounts, the other does not.  All users in my instance have active accounts in the other.

Anyone with experience with the Project Configurator add on, please let me know!

https://marketplace.atlassian.com/plugins/com.awnaba.projectconfigurator.projectconfigurator/server/overview

[Edwin Kyalangalilwa]

Hi Robert,

To be merged, the JIRA's will have to be on the same versions. Then you can take an export from either your instance or the other and use the Project Import functionality. 

https://confluence.atlassian.com/adminjiraserver/restoring-a-project-from-backup-938847691.html

The dashboards and links will need to be recreated.

[Rob Horan]

That seems.... way too easy.  Theres got to be a ton of other factors to consider.  Fields, workflows, etc?  Am I overthinking?

[Rob Horan]

Seriously, I can't even upgrade my test server using their installer without $#(@# blowing up on start.

[Edwin Kyalangalilwa]

Yes, fields will need to be recreated. But importing the workflows will create these fields as well in the process. 

Following the supported platforms for your versions shoud help with the upgrade process. What kinds of errors do you get?

[Rob Horan]

Hi Edwin, I just realized, these instructions are for a single project.  I need to move EVERYTHING.  Not just one project.

[Edwin Kyalangalilwa]

This is the option of merging the two. The other type is restoring the whole system which would delete all data in the target instance.

[Rob Horan]

Ummm... destroying the other instance is not an option.  I'm not quite sure how that would help :)