Cloud Migration FAQ

On this page, you have answers to the common questions asked about migrating Zephyr Squad data from Jira Server to Cloud.

If your question is not answered here or if you want more information, feel free to contact us.

Planning Migration

How long does the data migration take?

There is no certain method to calculate the time data migrations take. You need to be prepared for long hours of migration tasks. We urge you to test the migrations before committing to any timeline. Only a Test Migration will provide a good time estimation.

The duration of migration depends on many things:

  • The method chosen for data migration- The method chosen for the data migration - Atlassian has informed that Jira Site import migrates approximately 6 million issues in 24 hours, while JCMA will migrate 400,000.

  • The instance dataset

  • Some entities like Steps, and Executions have a bigger impact than others during the migration

  • Having lots of attachments slows down the migration

  • The data upload speed and server performance parameters also impact the data migration process.

To sum up, migrating a thousand entities should take a few hours, whereas a very large migration with thousands to millions of entities may take entire weekends or more.

We recommend that our customers do test migrations exhaustively before advancing to prod migration before committing to any timeline. If you have a large instance, please connect with our Cloud Migrations Manager to learn the best strategy to test the migration.

What migration method should I use?

There are two methods to migrate the Zephyr Squad data from Server/Data Center to Cloud:

  1. Jira Cloud Migration Assistant (JCMA)

    The recommended way to migrate the data from Server/Data Center to Cloud is to use the Jira Cloud Migration Assistant (JCMA) provided by Atlassian. The JCMA migration requires fewer technical steps to run as compared to the Zephyr Squad Migration Tool

  2. Zephyr Squad Migration Tool

    If JCMA migration is not possible, we offer the Zephyr Squad Migration Tool(ZMT) combined with Jira Site Import as an alternative way to migrate Zephyr Squad data. We urge you to study migration via ZMT carefully, as it requires more technical tasks.

It is important to know the limitations on data migration, as not everything will be migrated. Ensure that you know what you will be missing and check the infrastructure requirements.

Are there any feature gaps in Zephyr Squad Cloud when compared to the on–premise version?

Yes, there are a few differences in the features. You must know the differences in the features, if you are moving from Jira Server to the Cloud version of Zephyr Squad. Please refer to the comparison matrixto understand the differences in detail.

What are the Jira Cloud Migration Assistant (JCMA) limitations?

The JCMA cannot migrate Zephyr-only data. The Zephyr data must be migrated together in the same migration plan as Jira’s data. You must select the Projects before starting Zephyr migration. The JCMA will only trigger Zephyr migration after Jira migration is finished for the selected projects in the migration plan.

If you forget to select Zephyr, you will need to delete the project and run a new migration plan for it with Zephyr selected. It’s not possible to migrate Zephyr for an existing Jira project.

Note

If you skip Project selection, no data will be migrated. The JCMA shows “COMPLETE migration” message; however, no data is migrated as no Project key was informed in the migration plan.

What are the Zephyr Migration tool limitations?

The Zephyr Migration tool migrates all Zephyr Squad data, except for these entities:

  • Zephyr Squad custom fields used at the Test Steps and Test Execution levels.

  • Execution history in the Execution Details section. It is used to track the transitions of an execution.

Do I need to wait for the migration to finish before accessing the Cloud data?

Yes, all projects need to be migrated so dependencies can be resolved. We recommend our customers organize their migration plans considering that all projects must be finished before you can use them. It means that you may want to migrate larger projects in separated migration plans, to avoid delaying access to the other projects in the same migration plan.

Is there any specific order in which I need to migrate my projects?

No. Projects may have dependencies on each other, such as links. The links will be migrated in a broken state until the linked project is migrated. Once all dependent projects are migrated, the dependencies will be automatically fixed.

We recommend our customers organize their migration plans considering that all projects must be finished before you can use them. It means that you may want to migrate larger projects in separated migration plans, to avoid delaying access to the other projects in the same migration plan.

Is it possible to divide the migration in chunks?

Both the JCMA and the Zephyr Migration tool will allow you to migrate project by project. The JCMA allows you to select multiple projects in the same migration plan.

Can I run migration tasks in parallel?

Yes, you can run multiple JCMA migration tasks in parallel. Please note that it will affect Server performance and may result in dependency issues. All dependencies should be automatically fixed once all projects are migrated.

There is a global queue to process customer’s migration tasks using JCMA, and we estimate that one single customer will hardly be able to migrate more than 3 migration plans at the same time. This queue is first-in-first-out based, and we do not control who gets processed when.

If you are using the Zephyr Migration tool as your migration method, you can run multiple project migrations in parallel. However, please consider the Jira API calls limits. Please raise a support ticket or ask Atlassian to loop Zephyr’s Cloud Migration Manager to your Migration Support ticket for further assistance on running parallel migrations.

Licensing

Can I get a refund on our unused maintenance if we migrate to Cloud?

No, but if you complete the migration to Cloud before your Server license expires, we can offer a proportional discount for your new Cloud subscription. Please contact the Zephyr Sales team: [email protected].

Can we exchange our Server/Data Center license for Cloud?

No, but if you complete the migration to Cloud before your Server license expires, we can offer a proportional discount for your new Cloud subscription. Please contact the Zephyr Sales team: [email protected].

Can we exchange our Server/Data Center license for Cloud?

No, but if you complete the migration to Cloud before your Server license expires, we can offer a proportional discount for your new Cloud subscription. Please contact the Zephyr Sales team: [email protected].

Our Server license has expired. Can you provide a free Server license so we can upgrade Zephyr Squad to migrate to the Cloud?

If you already decided to purchase a Cloud subscription, please contact the Zephyr Sales team at: [email protected]. We will provide you with a promo code for your Server license so you can upgrade it and test the new version before the migration.

If you are not willing to purchase Cloud at this time, we recommend that you renew your Server maintenance so you can upgrade it and test the new version. Moving forward, if you end up migrating to Cloud before your Server license expires, we can offer a proportional discount for your new Cloud subscription.

More

Is it possible to merge Jira Cloud instances?

This is not possible now. Atlassian is working to provide Cloud-to-Cloud migration support for apps in 2022. Please see Atlassian’s public roadmap for more information on when Cloud-to-Cloud migration will be available and support app migrations.

Is it possible to merge a Jira Server instance into an existing Jira Cloud instance?

Yes, given that project keys will not conflict.

How to clear an instance for a new migration attempt?

If you need to clear the data of a previous migration attempt, the best practice is to clean up your cloud data by creating an XML backup from an empty Cloud site and re-importing it into the Cloud you need to clean.

You should not follow these instructions from Atlassian, as it will change Jira’s ID and likely cause errors with our migration engine.

See Also

Zephyr Squad Server-to-Cloud Migration Guides

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